Back-To-Back

In the case of four Athens buddies – Craig
Meeks, Clay McElroy, Bob Kenerly and
Marcus Simmons – they knew they would
be at SoFi Stadium for the January 9 game
but moments after the Peach Bowl semifinal
ended, they weren’t quite certain on the best
way to get to LA. The first morning of 2023,
though, the four came up with a plan.
“We were at a party on New Year’s Eve, and
then the next day we woke up and went to
a buddy’s in Athens, sitting at a bar in his
house,” Meeks said, “and we all just started
saying ‘what if we drove cross-country?’”
Thus, the “Road Trip to the ‘Ship” was
about to become a reality. The following
Friday, the group rented a minivan while
posing with it in front of UGA’s Butts-Mehre
Heritage Hall. Then off Meeks, McElroy,
Kenerly and Simmons went, beginning their
approximately 2,267-mile, 80-hour cross-the-
U.S. trip to Los Angeles.
But this wasn’t simply a long ride for a
football game – big as the game was – but
a chance to make pit stops at, well, some of
the more interesting venues this country has
to offer. That first day Friday they traveled
from Athens to Tunica, Mississippi, making
that their first casino stop.
“We have not had a plan the whole way,”
Meeks told the Athens Banner-Herald on
Sunday as they traveled on I-40 through
Gallup, New Mexico. “Our only plan we made
was to stop in Tunica. After that it’s just been
whatever.”
On Saturday, the Four Horsemen drove
some 14 hours from Tunica to Albuquerque,
New Mexico, with tweets on their twitter
account (@ATH2LA) chronicling stops for
catfish in Seminole, Oklahoma, three of the
four in deep sleep, a breathtaking sunset
and a stop at a gas station in Groom, Texas,
where they received a “Go Dawgs” from
several station attendants claiming they
were TCU fans.
And there were many more memorable
stops for the guys enroute, before finally
arriving at their destination on Game Day
Monday. Here is how the entire excursion
went down:
- Depart Athens - Butts-Mehre
- Tallapoosa, Ga. - Lottery Tickets
- Jasper, Ala. - Snack break
- Tupelo, Miss. - More Lottery Tickets
- Tunica, Miss. - Gambling and sleep
- Forest City, Ark - More Lottery Tickets
- Seminole, Ok - Catfish dinner at Catfish
Round-Up
- Cherokee - Casino in Oklahoma
- Groom, TX - snack and Go Dawgs from
TCU fans
- 75 Miles from Albuquerque - awful snacks
- Albuquerque - sleep plus visit to The Pit -
Dawgs ‘83 Final Four site
- Winslow, Arizona -
- Flagstaff - Lunch
- Lake Havasu City, Arizona
- Palm Springs - sleep
- Finally LA on Monday for the
game
Instead of making the drive back
to Athens after the Bulldogs’ 65-7
rout of the Horned Frogs, the four
decided to fly home.
“Originally, we were going to do a
full round trip, but now we’re going
to drive to Phoenix and fly back and
drop this van off in Phoenix,” Meeks
said as they headed west. “We
started looking at the shape of our
bodies and decided we’ll ride back
to Phoenix and fly from there.”
Kenerly said the favorite person he
met on the trip was “our waitress at
the Catfish Round Up in Oklahoma.
She wanted out of her two- bit
town badly! Our favorite stop,
I would have to say our detour
through Winslow, Arizona. That
song came out when I was probably
a 9th or 10th grader and I always
loved it, so it was fun to sing it in the very
town.”
“I have to say the best part of the trip was
we had no reservations to any hotel except
Tunica,” said McElroy. “We will leave Tunica
comments out but let’s just say we wreaked
when we left there on Saturday. When we
rolled into LA at noon on Monday, we had
no hotel reservation. We ran into some
Athens people at a hotel which had no
rooms available,” McElroy added.
“Lo and behold, Katherine Culpepper took
over and found us two rooms 10-15 minutes
from the stadium four hours before kickoff.
That is how we rolled the whole trip!”
“My favorite part of the trip,” said Simmons,
“was not knowing where we would stay
or knowing very little about the cities we
were going to – that made it fun. We had
no set plans, no real rush to get anywhere,
no agenda except to be in LA in time for the
game.
“Most of the time our main goal on the
road was to find the next Love’s store as
we probably visited 10 to 12 on the way
for bathroom breaks and varieties of food.
McDonald’s was key for breakfast.”
Simmons didn’t hesitate when asked if he
would make such a trip again. “Being able to
drive cross country and to do it with these
guys made for a once in a lifetime trip,” he
said. “I would do it again in a heartbeat with
this crew … Damn Good Dawgs!”
Meeks echoed Simmons’ feelings. “Damn
worth it! And would do it again,” he said.
“But Bob-0 (Kenerly), Worm (McElroy), Moe
Billy Copelan, Carrie Copelan, Christie Copelan,
Kendall Copelan
(Simmons) and Bear (Meeks) might hitchhike
next time (to next year’s national title game
in Houston) to make it more interesting.
“Flagstaff was a great stop for us due to
the snow and finding an old hotel with a
good pub for a brief hiatus,” Meeks said.
“As the Four Horseman like to say, what the
great Charlie Chaplin said, ‘A day without
laughter, is a day wasted’ Or maybe more
appropriately, like Forest Gump said, ‘stupid
is as stupid does!’”
The Athens foursome ended up getting
covered in print, radio and TV and they
created that twitter account so folks could
monitor the trip. They ended up with almost
2,000 followers.
A Traditional LA Road Trip
This is designated as a traditional road
trip to the national championship game
because it involves a St. Simons Island family
that not only follows their beloved Bulldogs
everywhere the team plays but, also, enjoys
taking in the sights and famous landmarks
of another part of America.
Long-time UGA supporter Billy Copelan
and his family flew out of the Jacksonville,
Florida airport on the Friday night of January
6. Along with Copelan were wife Christie,
daughters Carrie and Kendall and Carrie’s
boyfriend, Jacob Boatright.
“We flew out of Jacksonville Friday
evening around 7:30 and didn’t get to LA
until like 1 a.m. their time and 4 a.m. our
time,” said Copelan. “Going out we had to
go through Washington, D.C. and coming
back had to go through JFK in New York.
BULLDAWGILLUSTRATED
33 2022 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS EDITION
CONTINUE