Day 1:
Well, the Sub Connection subs are on board, bags are packed, the boys are ready, the 2022 baseball season is underway. After four years of bus trips, the creativity on our team has officially peaked. We haven't even made it out of South Dakota and we have Guitar Hero, Fortnite and Yahtzee being played all around the bus. This part is always boring so I'll just skip ahead to what's actually important…
 
Day 2: 
After another six hours on the road, we finally made it to our Airbnb. We have about 35 people with us. We have two connected houses. There are 26 beds here. A couple youngins' may or may not be sleeping on air mattresses the next couple of nights. 
 
It didn't take long for us to change and get back on the road for what we really wanted to see, Minute Maid Park, home of the Houston Astros. 15 minutes later, we were welcomed into the right field gate by Alexis, a worker for the Astros. She led us through some of the tunnels of the stadium before we found ourselves in the concourse. We only had 50 minutes of practice time because they had to get six teams in and out throughout the day.
 
We did most of our stretching up in the concourse before we made our way onto the field and hit some batting practice. If you are friends with any of the baseball team on social media, I'm sure you already knew that we were there but this moment is exactly what people mean when they say they feel like a kid in a candy store. The faces on all of the guys lit up when we walked up the steps onto the field. After a short practice we got our stuff back on the bus and headed back to the Airbnb. 
 
Later in the night, we were treated to an Italian dinner at Pasta Prima in Houston. Evan Furst was so excited to be the only person to order his meal, but then he ordered one of the most generic Italian meals in the shrimp scampi. Jack Hines ordered the same meal directly after Evan and he got really mad because he genuinely thought nobody else would order it.
 
After our meal, some of the guys made an interesting trek to the gas station, (over the hills and through the woods type stuff, but if the hills were guard dogs and the woods were some honking cars and people asking me to shout them out on Instagram), and then we all headed to bed in anticipation for the next day. 
 
Day 3: 
It's officially the first game day of the season for the 2022 Augustana Vikings baseball team. Coach Hoops made sure the boys were eating well, frying up some eggs, sausage and hash browns on the stove top. 
 
We got to the field at about 8:30 in the morning, but we weren't actually allowed on the field until 20 minutes before the game started at 10. So, at about 9:40 we had a herd of guys rush onto the field on both sides to play catch quickly before the first pitch. Unfortunately, we weren't able to come out with a win in our first game of the season, but I'm not too worried, we've done this three of the four seasons I've been at Augustana. We lost 3-2 to Arkansas Tech, a Top-25 ranked team in the nation. We definitely didn't play our best game and we know that we have plenty of more games left in our season. 
 
After the game, I was able to hang out with my parents at their hotel while a good chunk of guys either stayed and watched the other games or went with the coaches back to the Airbnb. Because we are in Texas, I forced my parents to walk over a mile across downtown Houston to eat Whataburger. Yes, it's better than that overrated destination spot called In-N-Out where people go because they want to take pictures and not actually eat. After hanging out with my parents, I made my way back to the Airbnb to get some homework done. 
 
Coach Huber grilled some burgers for the team for dinner, and approximately 70 burgers were consumed. While one of the houses jammed Guitar Hero for the majority of the night, the other house took in some culture, by watching the Scooby-Doo live action movie and Despicable Me. We found out quickly that Coach Huber is uncultured as he gave the quote of the weekend. "Shrek is okay". Yea okay big guy. After the movies and dinner, we made our way to bed to get things on the right track on the baseball field. 
 
Day 4: 
After another great night of sleep on my bunk bed, the house woke up to Coach Hoops setting off the fire alarm cooking our breakfast. After our soothing alarm, we ate and got on the bus to get back to the field for game two. 
 
This time we took the field against Arkansas-Monticello. The bats came alive for the first time of many in our season, we got to see some balls fly out of the park and we took care of business on the mound. I was able to throw for the first time in almost two years in an Augustana uniform, so it was a rather big day for myself. 
 
After the game, we headed back to the Airbnb and waited to go out to dinner. We were able to get dinner paid for by an Augustana baseball alumni. We were treated to authentic TexMex fajitas, chips and queso and the parents were able to treat themselves to quite a few Margaritas. Drey Dirksen's little brother, Beau, showed off his up and coming Youtube channel, Savage Bros, and even let me film a video for him in the restaurant. Go check it out and shoot him a like and subscribe. 
 
After dinner, Coach Huber was clearly a little happy after the game because we were able to go stop for some ice cream and root beer floats! The night was over after two gallon tubs of vanilla ice cream were consumed. Our final game of the weekend starts at 1:30 tomorrow so we didn't have to set an alarm for the first time. 
 
Final Day:
Final game, regional rival, roof fully open, Hoops is in the kitchen, wrist twisting like it's stir fry. We had to check out of the Airbnb today by 11 a.m. before getting our pregame meal of Popeyes chicken tenders. We arrived at the stadium and got ready to go. 
 
We won. 
 
Extremely fun game to end our weekend and proved to ourselves that we have the depth we need to be successful. We had a weird rule mishap in the middle of the game and were forced to throw seven pitchers and pinch hit three times because of it. Guys who didn't think they'd be making a huge impact today were on the field in some of the biggest moments of possibly the season. The boys were spoiled by the Astros and we were able to head into the visitor's locker room to shower and change before our long bus drive home. 
 
I'm currently typing this with the Super Bowl on my phone leaning up on the computer screen, but the rest of the bus is watching the game with a TV in the back of the bus, or on a laptop laying in the aisle in the front of the bus. I'm going to finish typing now, so if you made it all the way to the end of this thing, thank you very much for reading, thank you for your support of Augustana baseball, and we'll see you at the Ronk this spring. Go Augie!
 
-Seth Miller