This post will get interpreted wrong. That's guaranteed.
I enjoyed Lubbock and Stillwater for road trips. These destinations are 100% about tailgating. If you like football and tailgating, there is nothing wrong with game day in Stillwater or Lubbock.
The scene at Eskimo Joe's was always fun before and after a game. The hospitality at Tech for CU fans was unmatched.
These locations aren't about golf outings or shopping junkets or half moon bay or ghiradelli chocolate, or beach vacations to appease travel demands of the better half and pampered kiddos. The hotel accommodations aren't that great, either.
But Stillwater and Lubbock are places where a man can visit and leave the wife and children at home guilt free and do manly things like talk football, drink beer and eat grilled food. The conversation with the locals is unsurprisingly about football.
In Stillwater and Lubbock, there is no tight agenda that tries to mix football weekends with beach time, amusement parks, or visits to the homes of a dozens long lost friends from the Bay area who are scattered from Walnut Creek to San Jose.
Amidst the socializing on the prairie, the Okie Light and Tech fans open up thief mouths, their coolers, and their grills, and shoot the **** about how awesome their last vacation was to the Royal Gorge, Estes Park, or Monarch ski area. After the conversation about how awesome Colorado is grows stale, then they shift gears in to how much we mutually hate Texas and OU. Good times. The generosity of the Tech and Okie Lite fan will not be soon forgotten.
Cal fans don't feel the need to talk up Colorado to Buff fans. With Tahoe and Yosemite near by, most Cal fans don't feel the need to hang out in Boulder. They are pretty happy with their Bay Area lot in life, and would be generally happy with fewer people clogging their roads and driving up their rent. Most don't go nuts over football, either.
I just didn't see the same welcome wagon in Berkeley. It's not a very Cal thing to roll out the red carpet to visiting fans. Football is NOT the mission of the school. Neither is partying. That institution is too serious. In Cal there are signs, signs, too many signs saying do this, don't do that, can't you read the signs...
The best football thing going on in Berkeley prior to the game was the bar scene on Durant street and Henry's in particular. Henry's had a solid CU contingency. It was like Gold Lot West with all the Buffs in there. The Cal fans weren't exactly mixing it up and talking football with the visiting legions. It was a pretty secular experience at Cal. CU fans over here; Cal fans over there. Berkeley could stand to learn a thing or two from Tech when it comes to fellowship, offering acres and acres of hospitality tents, live bands on flatbed trailers and tail gating fans trying to finish off their last case of beer prior to kickoff.
The Berkeley PD were pretty clear about open containers in and around the stadium. I just hated dumping a six pack down the storm sewer under the authoritative gaze of Berkeley's thin blue line.
I did have a great "Vacation" in San Francisco, and football was just one small item on the agenda. I could have a great weekend in the Bay Area without going to a game. Frankly, the game and the tailgate are not the highlight of a Bay area trip, taking a back seat to some fantastic dining and entertainment in SFO proper. Football is marginalized at Cal by the siren songs of two million other things to do.
I'm eager and willing to scope out each of the road trip destinations in the P12 before rendering judgement. I'm excited by the chance to roll into P12 stadiums. But I can't imagine the neighborhoods around USC/Compton or Tucson will be nearly as neighborly as the streets of Lubbock & Stillwater. I doubt beer will flow as freely in SLC as it did in B12 country. I'm sure traffic congestion on the way to the stadium will suck some of the fun out of these west coast trips, too. But it's going to be an adventure to check it all out.
While I agree that Stillwater and Lubbock are not attractive destinations almost every day of the year, like NorCal, but those two unglamorous **** holes on the plains do manage to throw one hell of a dust-up on game day.
I will not miss Manhattan, Lincoln, Lawrence, College Station, Norman, Waco or Austin. Been there, done that. I never made it to Aims or Columbia, and don't think I missed much.
But I'd gladly return again and again to a CU game day in Stillwater or Lubbock.