Royalty is hitting the road again over President's Day weekend!

Here's the game plan:

I'm renting a car on Friday February 13th from Payless Car Rental for President's Day weekend.

The King  & I will be driving out to Columbus, Ohio then to Michigan before we head North of the Border & to Buffalo for the rest of the weekend. We plan to return home late Monday night/early Tuesday morning.

Friday February 13th Flyers at Blue Jackets 7PM

Saturday February 14th Akron Zips at Eastern Michigan Eagles 2:30PM

                                       Jets at Red Wings 7PM

Sunday February 15th Rider Broncos at Niagara Purple Eagles 2PM

                                     Flyers at Sabres 7:30PM

Monday, February 16th Tulsa Oilers at Brampton Beast 2PM

If you're interested in going on this exclusive getaway royalty style just let me know so I can arrange to have you join us.

It's going to be a blast so why not come for a "royal" ride.

Thank you for reading and following along.

Yours truly,

Gary Herman

Royalty meets up with Rick Morris of the FDH Lounge in Akron, Ohio for Zips football!

The King and I with Rick Morris

Friday night after I rented a Dodge Avenger from Avis I drove back home to pick up the King.

On my way home, I returned a call from our pal Rick Morris of the FDH Lounge who had left me a voice mail when I was still at work. He wanted to finalize our game plan for Saturday in Akron.

Rick said he was going to get to InfoCision Stadium in Akron which is the home of the Zips around 11-11:15AM. I decided to text him with a progress report when we stopped at a rest area on the way. I wound up parking the car around 11:30AM on the street across from the stadium. I got a text from Rick shortly thereafter he said he was by the will call window. We walked around the stadium and we met up with him.

After I picked up the King at home, we drove to the Post Office on 45th Street and Lexington Avenue where we arranged to met our pal Mike Carroll aka Sabre Mike who joined us for the weekend.

Once we met up with Rick outside the stadium, we went to the box office to see what the tickets cost. They had general admission available for $15 each. Since we had some spare time we decided to see if we could find someone who had extra tickets first for less. Patience is a virtue. We waited a little while and we wound up getting a few free tickets and a few others for $5.00 each. Overall we paid $10 for four tickets. Rick was impressed with the way we operate. When you do as much as we do, you need to cut corners whenever possible. It was a team effort. Like I like to say, teamwork makes the dream work.

When we got inside the stadium, we proceeded to go to the upper deck so we could have a nice elevated view of the action. We sat right at mid field. It was a sparse crowd that gathered for the game on a rather cool nasty day.

We saw a game with two teams that were headed in opposite directions. The hometown Zips of the University of Akron came in with a dismal 1-6 record while their opposition, the Huskies of Northern Illinois University were near the top of the MAC conference with a 6-1 mark. It should be noted that Rick Morris' alma mater Ohio University is 7-0 and they're ranked #23. Too bad we didn't get to see them play. I hope to see them play a home game in the future.

As for the game we saw, the teams played to their records. The Huskies raced out to a 13-0 lead before the Zips got on the scoreboard with a touchdown. At least they didn't live up to their nickname. Unfortunately for them, that was the only score they got as the Huskies went on to beat them easily, 37-7. It could have been a lot worse. Their quarterback, Jordan Lynch threw for 223 yards and he ran for another 131 including an amazing 35 yard scamper for a touchdown.

Since we had plans to go to another game nearby at Kent State University, we decided to leave with 4:54 left in the fourth quarter. We hate to leave any game early but it made all the sense to do so.

In retrospect, we didn't see a good game but the company was priceless so it was well worth being there.
I want to personally thank Rick Morris for sharing some of his precious time with us. It was great to see him again.

Stay tuned as the next installment of this latest getaway continued.

Thank you for reading and following along.

Yours truly,

Gary Herman

Royalty is going to invade the State of Ohio and Indiana for some football doubleheaders!

Here's the game plan:

I'm renting a car Friday night October 19th from Avis for the weekend after work.

I'll be driving out to Ohio and Indiana then I'll be heading back to Cincinnati before returning home late Monday night. If the Nationals get to the NLCS and play a Game 7 I plan to stop in Washington DC too before I come back home.

Saturday, October 20th Northern Illinois Huskies at Akron Zips 12 Noon

                                     Western Michigan Broncos at Kent State Golden Flashes 3:30PM

Sunday, October 21st Browns at Colts 1PM

                                  Steelers at Bengals 8:20PM

I hope to meet up with Rick Morris of the FDH Lounge as well as some other special guests from his media alliance network. If I do, it's definitely going to be a thrill.

If you're interested in going on this exclusive getaway royalty style just let me know so I can arrange to have you join me.

It's going to be a blast so why not come for a "royal" ride.

Thank you for reading and following along.

Yours truly,

Gary Herman

Royalty and company visit Western NY and Cleveland over the weekend Part Two!

National Anthem at Sabre Game

Saturday morning after spending the night sleeping at Super 8 in the Buffalo area, we started our day in typical royal fashion.

We ate a hearty breakfast at the Royal Restaurant which was conveniently located up the block from the hotel we stayed at.

What a perfect way to start another day. It got better as the day wore on as we got to meet up with part of the Ultimate Sports Road Trip aka USRT as our pal Andrew Kulyk joined us for the college football game we were attending as the University of Buffalo Bulls hosted the Akron Zips in a MAC conference game. Mind you both of these teams had horrible records.

As for the game we saw, the Bulls whipped up on the Zips by a score of 51-10. The Bulls took the opening kickoff back 93 yards to the Akron one yard line. Moments later, they scored a touchdown to make it 7-0 which set the tone for the remainder of the afternoon. The Zips almost got zipped as the Bulls tossed them a beatdown.

After the game, Andrew arranged to have us go to a place called Vizzi's Bar and Restaurant which is located in Kenmore, NY which wasn't far from the hotel we stayed at.

As for Vizzi's, they have been labeled as having the best burgers in Western New York. Needless to say, we decided to try it out to see if it lived up to its reputation. It sure did. They refer to them as monster burgers which come with fries for a mere $6.95. The burger was a massive chunk of meat that was served on a bun.

In addition, we had some "naked" wings if you will. That's the only way the King can handle them since he's such a picky eater. With that being said, Andrew and his partner Peter Farrell who was working showed up to join us, cringed at the plate of wings that was on the table. After all, Buffalo is notorious for their wings that are decorated in all kinds of sauce.

After we finished our great meal and drinks, we all headed over to Downtown Buffalo to see the Buffalo Sabres take on the Phoenix Coyotes at the newly named First Niagara Center formerly the HSBC Arena.
This was a big thrill for our friends Mike Carroll aka Sabre Mike and Frank Anichiarico who were seeing this building for the very first time.

It was especially a real big deal for Sabre Mike because the Sabres are his favorite hockey team. The King and I told him in the past we were going to take him there some day. Well that day finally came.

Unfortunately for him the final result wasn't what he hoped for as the Coyotes beat the Sabres, 4-2. He now has a good reason to come back some time in the future. If he does, hopefully the Sabres will win for him.

After the game, we said goodbye to the Buffalo Boys who as usual rolled out the red carpet and they treated us royally. They arranged to buy us our tickets to the game so we could all enjoy the game together. It's always a pleasure to see their guys and catch up on our travels past, present and future.

Speaking of that, please stay tuned for the final installment from this amazing weekend as I will write another post that will go into further detail regarding that and then some.

Trust me it will be worth the wait.

Thank you for reading and following along.

Yours truly,

Gary Herman