The early morning sky in Norman, Oklahoma is bright orange just like Zach Bryan told us it would be. God is the only one who can get away with painting this town orange thanks to those Pokes up north.

In a few hours, fans will file into Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium dressed in crimson and white for an early kick. After months of the text thread popping off, the band is back together.

The Vegas odds tell us it’s a wasted trip, but this might be our one chance to see UCF share the field with a Sooner Schooner.

On the eve of the game, we eat too much Mexican food at Pepe Delgados after striking out at Hideaway Pizza. A rainbow of salsas in tiny plastic cups chased with tortilla chips made with love (and maybe some salt).

We run into a random parade on campus. Pickup trucks with stringed Christmas lights and makeshift banners as college students wave glow sticks.

We find Harry Potter’s house, or at least what’s what the plaque tells us. It’s October and this town was made for trick-or-treating on haunted wagons. Giant blow up skeletons and a pretend Hogwarts make for the perfect pretend sorority selfie.

Finally, the hotel lobby becomes tonight’s campfire telling stories about the good old days. So and so did such and such. After running out of energy more than stories, we leave the tab for Matty and all pile into a hotel room.

Far away from our domesticated lives with pretty wives and Anthropologie candles, this weekend is a throwback. Guys on pull out couches and double beds. Snoring and smells.

Who has it better than us?

These are the good old days.

Oklahoma Sooners Football: A Tailgating Guide to Norman Gamedays

Despite the black and gold attire, Norman welcomes us. On the spot, we are invited to a tailgate put on by drug dealers.

It’s exactly what you think, the Osborn family runs a local drugstore.

This spot. These people. Breakfast tacos and red cans. A family tradition we come to find out. The tailgate has been passed on from generation to generation like a family heirloom wedding ring. Red solo cups with breakfast lemonade have replaced jewelry.

People invite us in wanting to share their stories. A family’s love for a school or college sweethearts who met in American history class freshman year. We’re all from somewhere, and we’re just dying to tell others about it.

These are the good old days.

Oklahoma Memorial Stadium: Let’s Have a Day in Norman

For most of us, it’s our first 11 a.m. kickoff thanks to God’s time zone. I’m convinced we won’t remember many scores, but we won’t forget these Saturdays.

The Oklahoma campus is full of statues, a nod to history. A covered white wagon comes onto the field with pretend cowboys and snow-colored horses. I’ve never seen a Sooner or a Schooner but here we are.

College football is weird, but it’s our kind of weird.

There is an absurdity to adults forming entire fall schedules around football games. We forget most of the plays (except Javon Baker throwing up deuces at the OU sideline) , but we remember the people we were with and how they made us feel.

Men struggle to share real moments and often need an excuse to do so. Sports is currency, and if we were better people maybe we wouldn’t need a go-between. We’d be the people we’ve always wanted to be, asking the right questions and checking in at the right times.

But we live in reality, far from our ideal selves. Still becoming. College football is an excuse to connect. Saturdays are community, and maybe we still need a good excuse.

As for the score, UCF surprises and has a chance to send the game into overtime with a two-point conversion. A running back pass?

On the long drive back, we question the play call. Taking the ball out of the quarterback’s hands on the biggest play of the game? We’re somehow disappointed as expectations have a funny way of rising during games.

Ted Lasso was right. It’s the hope that kills you, but we attempt to have the memory of a goldfish on the drive back.

We pass through nowhere towns that’s the middle of somewhere to somebody. Justin hits our group created cities playlist as Norman drifts into the background.

Your trip will be different than mine, but I bet it makes you feel the same. You’ll feel small when you look out the window at the open road but not insignificant. Belly full off stories but still enough space to hear them again in the morning.

A writer I like says someday we’ll be staring at our lives like a book with more pages in our left hand than the right. Our lives sandwiched between sunrises and sunsets.

For all we know, that day could be soon. There are still pages to be written.

Somethin’ in the orange tells me we’re not done.

There’s plenty of room on the open road. Hope you take that trip and find that random parade. Hope you tell those stories.

Maybe your team will win but probably not.

This story can be paired with a few songs that inspired some of these travel memories. Zach Bryan’s “Something in the Orange.” The Revivalists “Good Old Days.” Luke Combs “Middle of Somewhere.” Hope you don’t hate it.