No Sleep Till Sunday

The fun started early this weekend. My family, including my girlfriend, Katelynn, and my brother Blake’s girlfriend, Tori, had tickets to see Luke Bryan’s Farm Tour in Millersport, Ohio, on Friday. Because of that, I left Thursday night after a long day of classes and got back home just in time to go to my brother’s soccer game against Whitmer, a school in Toledo.

Whitmer is a pretty big school, but its soccer team is not that great, so I was not too worried about the game. By halftime, we were up 4-0, so we started putting in some of the backup players. That only slowed down the scoring, though. I honestly lost count by the end of the game. All I know is that we scored a lot and they scored one. After the game, we headed home and waited for Katelynn to get there. She arrived sometime between 10:30 and 11 p.m., and we all hung out for a little bit before heading to bed.

The next morning was the big day. We got up, showered and got ready before heading out to pick up Tori. Once we picked her up, we had a three-hour drive to Millersport. We listened to music, played games and talked the entire way, so before we knew it, we were there.

We arrived a couple of hours early and did not want to just sit around, so Blake, Tori, my sister Piper, Katelynn and I decided to walk around and see if there was anything we could get into. After taking a couple of laps, we realized all the food and merchandise were inside the concert gates, and they were not letting anyone in yet. The only thing worse than sitting around waiting is standing around waiting, so we decided to head back to the car.

Right as we were getting ready to leave, Katelynn said, “Am I dumb, or is that literally him?” We all turned around and saw about 100 people swarming around the man himself, Luke Bryan. We rushed over with everyone else and somehow ended up in the middle of the crowd. After getting knocked around for 10-15 minutes, we finally made it to the inner circle and secured his signature. We even got a video of us saying hi to him as his team drove him away. He waved and said, “What’s up, guys,” and we lost our minds.

We sprinted back to the car to show our parents. They were a little jealous that they did not come with us, but they were also really excited for us. We chilled for a couple of hours and even made friends with the couple parked next to us before the gates finally opened.

Once we got inside, we found some decent seats, got some fair food and enjoyed the show. The openers were Dasha, Kenny Whitmire and The Peach Pickers, who have written songs for some big names such as Jon Pardi, Blake Shelton, Morgan Wallen and Luke Bryan. All of their performances were great and really set the stage for Luke.

Luke eventually came out and performed some of his hits before getting into some of his newer music. He finished the concert with some of his biggest songs, including “Play It Again,” “Country Girl (Shake It for Me)” and “I Don’t Want This Night to End.” Those were some of the songs I grew up listening to, so hearing them live was awesome. By the end of the concert, my voice was pretty much gone.

After the concert, we sat around trying to leave for over an hour. Once we finally got on the road, we stopped at Taco Bell and started the three-hour drive home. We got back around 5 a.m. and went straight to bed.

Unfortunately, I did not get to sleep for very long. At 10 a.m., I had to get up because I had promised Piper I would go with her and my dad to Cedar Point with her cheer team. Katelynn headed home when I left because she had work that evening.

It was honestly not the best day for Cedar Point. It was chilly and lightly raining pretty much the entire time. Because of that, my dad decided to drop us off and hang out in Sandusky since he does not have a pass and figured it would be a waste to go into the park. The rain ended up being a blessing in disguise, though, because the park was not very busy. We were able to ride just about every ride in the park.

One of the biggest accomplishments of the day was getting Piper to ride Valravn, which she had been too scared to ride in the past. I even got her to agree to ride Top Thrill 2 the next time we go. If you do not know, it is the tallest roller coaster in the United States, so that is a pretty big step. All of her cheer friends were really chill, we got to do a lot and my dad even brought us Cane’s for lunch, so I had a great time!

Unfortunately, I had to break off after Cedar Point because I was going to a friend’s get-together in Medina that I was meeting Katelynn at. The party was pretty lowkey, which was perfect because I was exhausted. We played games, joked around and hung out until around 3 a.m., when Katelynn and I finally headed home and went straight to bed.

We slept in the next day, got some homework done and watched some “Shameless.” I ended up losing track of time and not leaving her place until around midnight, meaning I did not get back to campus until 2 a.m.

Looking back, this weekend was absolutely exhausting, but I would not change much about it. Between seeing Luke Bryan, meeting him, going to Cedar Point and spending time with my family, friends and Katelynn, I got to do a little bit of everything. It was definitely one of those weekends where I was tired the entire time, but still did not want it to end.