We arrived in Canton, MI, about 30 minutes north of Ann Arbor on a sunny Thursday morning, having crossed the border at Detroit much faster than we had anticipated. Our AirB&B was a sweet little suite that the house owners had built for their parents when they came to visit and was just perfect for our needs over the next few days. We deposited our gear and headed on down to Ann Arbor for Jim’s much anticipated first trip to “The Big House”, where his favourite college team, the Michigan Wolverines play and where we would be attending a game on Saturday. But this day was all about just walking around the outside, checking out what we could and then heading to the M Den so Jim could stock up on his game day gear.
It was a memorable moment, as we rounded a corner and Jim caught his first glimpse of the stadium. I’m not saying there were tears, but there might just have been! He was pretty excited and it was so fun to be with him to experience this. He has been a fan of this team since he was a little kid up in Bradford, Ontario, but had never been to a single game, either here or away, so this was a pretty special moment.
We parked the van on a side street and spent as much time as we could wandering around the outside of the stadium. At one point we came upon the team entrance, which was being guarded by a couple of very nice ladies who kindly informed us that we could not go down the tunnel to see the field (darn!), but did allow us to take some pictures of this famous part of the stadium.
We continued wandering around, noting that the Wolverine symbol could be found in some pretty strange places, before finally heading back to the van and over to the M Den where Jim picked up some new duds. He was a pretty happy camper, I gotta say, and we hadn’t even gotten into the stadium yet!
The next day was a free one for us, spent doing the more mundane things such as laundry, van cleaning and working on blogs, etc. It is nice, every so often, to just not go anywhere. I’m sure our host was a little puzzled by our lack of interest in going out and doing things, but we very much enjoyed the down time, believe me.
Saturday morning came and with it a little rain, but that didn’t dampen our enthusiasm. We drove down early to make sure we got a parking spot (their stadium is the largest college stadium in the US, holding over 100,000 fans!) before walking into town to find something for breakfast. That done, we sauntered over towards the stadium. Along the way, we just happened to be near the practice field where the players would soon be coming out to get on the buses heading over to the game. We waited around and were rewarded with a very quick glimpse of the coach, Jim Harbaugh, coming out first. The rest of the players soon followed. It seems so funny to see these guys up close. You realize how very y
oung they are!
After the players left, we followed the ever growing crowd over to the stadium where we entered, me going first so I could properly record every new experience for Jim. It was pretty funny, I’m sure, for someone else watching, but I wanted to catch this precious memory for him. It was exhilarating to see the field for the first time and we wandered all over, catching different views before finally heading up to our seats. Thankfully, our seats were not too far from the exits and my brother, Tom, had told us it was a long long hike to the bathroom from the seats down low.
When the team finally came onto the field, we roared with the rest of the crowd. For this day, I would be a Wolverine fan, quickly learning how they do their fight song and enjoying all of the hoopla that goes along with college football. I won’t go into the details of the game (poor Rutgers!), but suffice it to say, we got to do the fight song A LOT!
When the game was finally over, and the team retired from the field, we left the stadium, finding it much easier to exit than we had anticipated. We wandered over to the town, looking for a bar to maybe catch part of my Huskies game, but quickly found that the other Michigan team’s game was on everywhere and with the line-ups long to get in, we decided to head back up to Canton. There, we found a pizza place where my game was on and enjoyed some beer and pizza while we watched it. All in all, it was a most memorable day – one much too long in coming. We will, for sure, come back for another – just not when they are playing my team!
We ended up staying one extra day in Canton before heading off towards Pittsburgh, where we were planning to cycle the GAP/C&O trail from there to Washington, DC. We needed to have a one night stopover along the way and so decided to make that stop in the other Canton in Ohio. Of course, this Canton is the home of the National Football Hall of Fame, which was, of course, the reason we stopped there. Arriving in the afternoon, we spent a couple of hours looking at the displays and remembering football heroes from the past. All in all, it had been a wonderful football interlude for a couple of football nuts like us!
