With Ragnarok on his honeymoon for the next 2 weeks, he will not be able to post.  However, he has been kind enough to draft his roadtrip recaps.  I, TwistNHook, will post them in his stead.  Look forward to seeing the rest of the list develop over the next 2 weeks.

#8 - Washington State
#7 - Oregon State
#6 - USC
#5 - Arizona

#4 - Arizona State

If you’re young enough to not look out of place at a frat party or a college bar, you owe it to yourself to make the trek down to Arizona State.  The Pac-10’s resident "safety school" is filled with "college students" with more looks than brains, but if you’re just looking to hook up on a football road trip (it’s not cheating if it’s out of state, right?), that will do just fine.

Now, I’m not going to call Arizona State a party school, but I don’t have to.  Playboy has already done it for me.  In 2002, Playboy published its list of top party schools, and guess who came out on top — yep, Arizona State.  And while the school fell to 3rd when Playboy published a new list last year, being ranked behind Wisconsin and UCSB is no shame — at least in the partying world.  If you’re trying to use your degree from Arizona State to get a job in the real world, feel free to be ashamed.

Seriously, I had no trouble at all digging up dirt on ASU.  I love the quote from Playboy’s 1987 party school list:

A consistent winner in party-school polls. Students’ goal: to be thin, tan, and popular. "Most of the guys here are in permament heat."

Now that sounds like a fun place to visit.  Of course, the partying does get out of hand.  From the same article:

We’ve heard variations on this, but the Fijis claim they once sent their favorite sorority a box of doughnuts. The next day, when they were sure the doughnuts had been eaten, the frat sent the girls a photograph of themselves WEARING the very same doughnuts.

Of course, these sorts of incidents don’t really embarrass the university, unlike the ASU cheerleader who later began a career in pornography, which wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t done it while wearing her ASU cheerleading uniform!  And I know of one fraternity that was disciplined by the university for having a pornographic movie filmed at their frat house.  Again, not SO bad, until you realize that at ASU, the fraternity houses are on campus!  (The houses look like cheap, two-story motels, so I can understand the appeal to filmmakers.)  I actually went and visited these guys the next year (fun people!), who told me that despite the discipline handed down by the administration, they has their largest pledge class ever the next semester, by a fair margin.  That sounds about right.

This is the only picture of the cheerleader in question that I can post on this site.  Courtney Cox (her real name!) is the one on the right.

Anyway, how does one get to this college sex paradise?  Well, flying is a pretty quick and convenient option, one that I’d definitely recommend if you’ve got the cash.  However, if you’ve got a couple friends and a serious need to save some cash, the drive is definitely doable.  Basically, you take the drive south to LA, then tack on a 5-hour drive east through the desert (more if you hit LA traffic).  It’s quite a haul, and it’ll probably be dark nearly the entire time you’re on Interstate 10 heading east, but that’s OK — you won’t miss anything.  Seriously.  If you thought I-5 was a boring drive, you haven’t seen I-10.  Possibly one of the loneliest stretches of interstate in the nation, Joshua Tree National Park counts as ‘interesting’ in these parts.  And that’s just in California.  Once you cross the state line, there really isn’t anything.  Rocks and scrub brush, basically.  You know those highway signs that list upcoming towns and their distances?  In Arizona, they list the next town as ‘Rest Stop’, and the one after that as ‘Phoenix’.  Honest.  No towns between the border and the Phoenix suburbs.  None.

OK, but Phoenix itself is interesting, and for much of the same reasons as Tucson:  sunshine, natural beauty, golf courses, old west historical sites, etc.  It’s also a bigger town, with all 4 major professional sports leagues represented, even hockey!  (In the desert?  Does that make sense to anyone?  Ah, who the hell cares.  I had to look up the fact that they had a hockey team.)  And of course, with ASU nearby, Phoenix suburb Tempe offers plenty of nightlife in its Mill Avenue district.  Definitely worth a visit.

Until recently, Sun Devil Stadium played host to the NFL’s Cardinals, which probably says more about the Cardinals’ having to play in a college stadium than it does about the quality of the stadium itself.  Still, I’m told (by the ASU athletic department) that it’s a top-notch college facility; my opinion was that the seats I had high in the second deck, way over in the corner, were awfully far from the field, thought they still afforded a good view.  Also, I’m quite partial to the giant painted letter built into a nearby butte that overlooks the stadium, called ‘"A" Mountain’.  It’s the same deal as Big ‘C’, but with a different letter.  Whatever, I like it.

Gosh, that’s a pretty sky they’ve got over there.

Reasons to visit the desert:
- Lovely scenery, great golf, nice weather, etc.
- Fabulous party atmosphere.
- Fabulously thin atmosphere.  Phoenix is in a high desert, meaning that the elevation implies thinner air.  How does this affect football?  Balls fly further, which means that kickoffs routinely sailed out of the back of the end zone.  I saw one kick split the uprights.
- Catch a Diamondbacks game and see former Cal star Conor Jackson.  Or catch a Cardinals game and see former Cal star J.J. Arrington.
- Drive-through liquor stores across the street from campus.  Seriously.

Reasons to stay by the bay:
- The drive manages to be both long and boring, AND it suffers from LA traffic.
- With plenty else to do, student passion isn’t as high as it could be.  ASU has led the Pac-10 in attendance 7 times, but not once since 1986.
- Drive-through liquor stores across the street from campus.  If you’re not looking to get really drunk and do something stupid, perhaps this isn’t the weekend for you.  Myself, I got really drunk and did several stupid things, some of which were caught on film.

Honestly, I had some difficulty coming up with negative points there.  Other than the long-ass drive, this is a pretty cool road trip.  You should check it out.