Brought to you by special guest and longtime best friend of Luci’s, Courtney Burrow. This past weekend was one I will never forget! As unexpected competitors, the Ole Miss Rebels played in the College World Series…and WON! The Rebels’ journey to National Champions was a wild one and so was our spontaneous trip to Omaha.

After the Rebels beat Arkansas on Thursday, Luci, Lyncyn, and I immediately started planning our roadtrip to Omaha, more than eager to cheer on the Rebs to victory. Knowing the championship games were best 2 out of 3, we decided to take our chances and purchase tickets for Sunday’s game. This could be a once in a lifetime opportunity. We took a chance with no regrets…other than not wearing sunscreen. Here’s how our road to Omaha went…

Piling into Luci’s car, we left Birmingham at 7:45 am on Saturday morning with a 10 hour drive ahead of us to Kansas City, MO. Luci was excited about driving her first time through Arkansas until it felt like we were in the state of Arkansas for 4 too many hours. By the time it hit 6 pm, we became literal road Rebs while driving through Missouri and streamed the first game on Luci’s phone. In the best timing possible, we made it to a Mexican restaurant in Kansas City to finish watching the incredible first game. Back-to-back-to-back home-runs had us screaming at the restaurant’s bar TV. We then headed to our hotel in Overland Park, KS and were more than excited to get to sleep before the big game on Sunday in Omaha.

Sunday morning at 7 am, I drove the 3 hours to our final destination, Omaha, NE. Our timing to Omaha was perfect giving us the opportunity to park and eat brunch at a local restaurant, Jams. After a couple wrong turns, we walked our way to Charles Schwab Field and met a huge crowd of Ole Miss fans at a local bar, Blatts, across the street from the stadium.

At 2 pm, it was game time. We found our seats high up under the scorching sun behind 3rd base. The first 7 innings were quite stressful for all three of us due to bad calls, overturned plays, close scores, and singeing skin from the sun. After Oklahoma’s score was overturned, Gonzalez hit a home-run, and OU’s catcher had a couple mess-ups, we were about ready to storm the field as National Champions. The long journey there and journey ahead all became worth it in the 8th and 9th inning as the Rebels secured the National Championship.

After the hugging and cheering had died down, we made our way back to Blatts for a victory drink and food. Morale was high and it was evidential that everyone in Omaha could not be more proud to be Ole Miss Rebels. We couldn’t get over it and kept saying it out loud to make sure it was true: “We’re national champions.” We had heard that Omaha was known for steak and ice cream, since we were already spending an arm and a leg to get to Omaha, we opted to try out the ice cream places instead of the steak houses. After we left Blatt’s, we went to TED AND WALLY’S ice cream place. It was adorable and off the beaten path, so it was not too crowded.

After a good nights sleep in Omaha (shoutout to the Hurst Family), we made our way on the long journey back to Birmingham, Monday morning at 7 am. On our roadtrip home, we were coming back with full hearts and burnt skin, had crossed off some new states (Arkansas {Luci only}, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, and Nebraska) and had big smiles, still pinching ourselves that we were National Champions. We did take an alternate route home in order to prevent driving across the ENTIRE state of Arkansas again. After we stopped for gas a couple times, potty breaks, lunch in Springfield, Missouri (shoutout to Makenna) and dinner in Tupelo, MS we made it back to Birmingham around 10:30 pm.

The whole weekend felt like a dream waking up in Birmingham one morning, Kansas the next, and Omaha the next. Thank you to the Lord for our safety in travel, Luci for planning and being our hype woman, and the Ole Miss Rebels baseball team for an unforgettable experience watching them win the College World Series. The atmosphere in Charles Schwab and Omaha was unlike anything else and left us feeling proud all weekend to be Ole Miss Rebels. Hotty Toddy!!