Nearly three months ago, I left the pleasant climatic environs of San Diego, donning a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and sunglasses around my eyes (basically to create the aura that I’m cool). More than two months later, I haven’t worn shorts in several weeks and I’m now wearing gloves and dressing in as many as four layers, minus shades. Brrr, it has been cold indeed.

The cold temperatures might also have contributed to my Washington, DC breakdown last week, resulting from a trifecta of problems: dead battery, air leak, and faulty return flow valve. With the green machine back in business, I was back on the road.

On Thanksgiving Day, I was in “Big D,” aka, Dallas, Texas, where it was – snowing. Yep, that’s right, let it snow in the Sunbelt on Turkey Day. The open roof at Texas Stadium, home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, is such that “God can watch his favorite team play” but the only thing clearly visible above the field against the Jets in the first half were white flakes coming down in droves. The snow never made it to field level but it was so cold the Cowboys cheerleaders weren’t even showing their belly buttons, none of which would have made a difference in the game as the playoff-bound “America’s Team” pounded the lowly Jets. 

From the Lone Star State, I took in three rivalry games over the next three days in three different states, starting with Louisiana State hosting the Arkansas Razorbacks, aka Hogs/Pigs, in Baton Rouge in a game with national title implications. The host Tigers welcomed their enemy owning the No. 1-ranking in college football, and had dominated the annual “Battle of the Golden Boot” showdown (an ugly trophy shaped like a boot – don’t ask).

LSU has a tailgating reputation as being as “close to Mardi Gras as Mardi Gras” and I experienced this reality firsthand. Before kickoff, a group of diehard Tigers stabbed the hell out of a pig and I was forced to get in on the act, but made sure to don it with a winter cap (because even dead pigs get cold). However, it would be the Tigers – not the Hogs – that would really be totally toast by day’s end.

If there’s been one common theme throughout this college football season, it’s been upsets, with a plethora of top-ranked teams getting stunned. I’ve been a witness to many of the proceedings from day one – for example, witnessing the only two losses of Georgia’s fine season. But there was no bigger stakes, and no bigger an upset than Arkansas’ triple overtime triumph over LSU at Tiger Stadium where the last thing Cajuns were thinking about post-game was that singer Van Morrison happened to find inspiration for their home field for a lyric in “Brown-Eyed Girl.”

After Friday’s shocker, I traveled back through Big D headed to Oklahoma where it was, gasp, snowing again. Fortunately, by the time I got to Norman – home of the Oklahoma Sooners – it was neither snowing nor raining, but man, it was still cold. The OU cheerleaders weren’t the only ones bundled up. Yours truly had four layers beneath his blue jacket, but all was not blue for the host Sooners who pummeled in-state rival Oklahoma State to claim the Big 12 Conference North Division title to the happiness of their fans and their vibrant band.

From non-stormin’ Norman, I drove north, through Kansas to Kansas City, Missouri, where the NFL’s Chiefs were hosting AFC rival, Oakland on Sunday. The Chiefs had dominated the Raiders, winning the last nine contests. But they play games for reasons, and the silver and black found reasoning in the Chiefs lackluster offensive miscues to take advantage and sneak out of Arrowhead Stadium with a victory. One bright spot for Chiefs fans? Well, there cheerleaders aren’t sissies like the Cowboys, Sooners and your climatically-challenged author.

Multiple layers? What, are you kidding me? The Chiefs gals showed plenty of skin for four quarters on Sunday while their team got skinned by the pathetic Raiders (and you thought the Chargers were having a bad season).

Four football games in four days in four different states: mucho dinero, mucho fun, mucho hace frio (e.g.., mucho cold).

Brrr, but I’m still having a mucho great time.

When the Adventures of the Green Machine last left you, the machine and me somehow managed to make it to Wisconsin. From there, with return fuel lines patched up, it was  back east with the anticipation of a Saturday visit to Florida State and a Sunday stop in Atlanta to see the Michael Vick-less Falcons.

Anticipation, however, isn’t reality, and when it rains, it pours.

After having new glow plugs installed, my return fuel lines fixed and a new water pump added, I figured that had to be the end of my maintenance issues. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Last Thursday evening, following a Maryland basketball game, I noticed I had virtually no power when I pressed the accelerator when the light turned green at a stop. The next morning, reality set in when the car just flat out died in the middle of a residential street.

I would be taking a rain check on Florida State and the Falcons because the Green Machine would be spending its weekend in the cozy environs of a Washington, DC area Mercedes-Benz dealer, its troubles not to be examined until Monday.

Fortunately, my awesome Aunt, Uncle and cousins live in the area, so I would have free shelter and more. So as down and depressed as I was last Friday night, I realized I could have been in a far worse place and decided I should make the most of my weekend in the environs of our Nation’s Capitol.

First stop: the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, about 40 miles outside Washington, where the Midshipmen were welcoming Northern Illinois for their final football home game this season. My awesome cousin, Katherine, loaned me her VW Passat for the day and I was off on another yet adventure.

The Internet is a beautiful thing, and I wisely researched before my arrival in Annapolis that parking around Navy-Marine Corps Stadium was atrocious, and was advised to park off-site and utilize a free shuttle service. It was a good call because not only did I secure free parking and a free shuttle bus ride to the game, but I also managed to get invited to a tailgate party of former Navy and Marines, of which one of the former servicemen loaned me a free ticket. God love Navy, and the Marines, and America!

One of the great Navy football traditions is the “March In,” where all the Midshipmen and Midshipwomen parade into the stadium in their uniforms. Navy-Marine Corps Stadium is also the only venue in the world where you are guaranteed to see a Blue Angel aircraft parked out front, plus a really cool flyover before every single game.

It was a brisk, but sunny mid-November Saturday, and the fans applauded as Navy jumped out to an early lead on visiting Northern Illinois. What I admired most about my experience at Navy was how all of its great, worldwide missions over the past century are displayed on the stadium façade like “Desert Storm,” “Iwo Jiwa” and “Pearl Harbor.” Nowhere on the façade or elsewhere in the stadium were the words “Staubach,” for former Navy quarterback and Heisman Trophy Winner, Roger Staubach.

The reasoning need not be explained: individual sporting achievements, while impressive, are not as important as team efforts, and sports is not nearly as important as the Navy’s most vital missions of helping to maintain peace and security at home and abroad.  

Navy held on for the victory, giving them a 7-4 mark and a ticket to San Diego for the Poinsettia Bowl, Dec. 20. But the Mids next big game is Dec. 1 against their arch-rival, Army, in Baltimore. I hope to be there, but well, one week at a time, kids.

On Sunday, I was in a DC college basketball state of mind, and I took in games at American University by day and George Washington University by night. The latter featured the Colonels hosting top-ranked Rutgers in a women’s hoops tilt broadcast nationally on ESPNU. Only in DC are cheerleaders called “first ladies” and can a mascot hold a striking resemblance to our country’s first president.

Rutgers whooped the Colonels silly, and I took the Metro from DC back to my Aunt and Uncle’s house in Maryland, walking through the neighborhood where my car had died more than 48 hours earlier. As my wristwatch revealed close to Midnight, I didn’t know what the next day would bring. Then again, I’m not taking it one day at a time on this trip, but rather one hour at a time.

By Tuesday, the car was back in business.

I no longer dream of the ultimate, Saturday college-Sunday NFL fantasy football weekend taking place within the confines of the same state. That's because I literally experienced it this past weekend in the great State of Wisconsin, with a visit to the University of Wisconsin last Saturday and the Green Bay Packers last Sunday. And man, oh man, what a wild, wacky (pick your adjective) weekend it was. And, oh, where to begin.

Let's start with early Saturday morning when my fine, lime green 1984 Mercedes  running on vegetable oil suddenly stalled around 2 a.m. during nightmarish construction traffic on I-90/94, north of downtown Chicago. I managed to safely pull over, and, at the time, I thought the problem was likely a lack of fuel (diesel/biodiesel and/or vegetable oil, as I was decidedly low on both). However, I got the car started 10 minutes later and was back in business, only getting stuck in more one-lane traffic while also missing my hotel exit. I hit the pillow at 3:30 a.m. at a Motel 6 in Chicago's northwest suburbs and the alarm rang at 7:30 a.m. for my destination was Madison, Wisconsin, two hours away and home of the Big 10 Badgers and formerly rated as one of the Top 10 party schools on the college circuit.

By 8 a.m. Saturday, I was on the road - and stalled again. Only this time my problem had been identified: diesel busting out of two of return fuel lines like Noah's Ark. Not good, not good at all, especially since I had no idea how to fix it. In the short-term, I would just burn oil - lots of it.

But stop now? Not if I could help it. I had driven the night prior from Ann Arbor, Michigan, some 250 miles away, where I had taken in University of Michigan basketball and hockey games. I wasn't going to let Noah's Ark ruin my ultimate fantasy football weekend.

I got the car started (again), only to see the car stall (again) on the 1-90 toll road. My confidence tumbled around 8:20 a.m. as I called 911 seeking a tow. A unfriendly driver with Pete's Towing soon showed up, and proceeded to aggressively push me into a tow to a general service station in a small, nearby town of West Dundee, Illinois that wasn't even open and wouldn't be until Monday; "I got 12 other service calls this morning and you (that would be me, Joe Connor) need to make a decision." I decided to make the tow man wait until I called my State Farm agent so I could find the nearest station that serviced Mercedes and diesels, not gasoline-fueled machines. The tow man decided I wasn't worth his time so he took off, leaving me stranded. Real classy.

I decided then and there that no jerk on this planet was going to stop me from getting to Madison, Wisconsin, not even Officer Krupke who next visited me along the lonely road to lecture me on how to pull a stalled car off the side of the road. Before Illinois' finest had gotten out of his lights-flashing vehicle, I had started the car (again), then convinced Mr. Policeman I was now good to go, and I didn't stop (the car, that is) until I pulled in front of a house a few blocks from Camp Randall Stadium around Noon.

A 21-year-old Wisconsin engineering major had read about my journey thanks to Jim Caple's writing on ESPN.com, and invited me to park at his house. I not only accepted the offer, I also took him to the game because one of my awesome sponsors, Doc Sports (http://www.docsports.com), had Badger season tickets and let me use their two seats.

Camp Randall, which opened in 1917, was an incredible awesome sea of red and roar, and the Dairymakers did not disappoint the 80,000 plus faithful, ousting Michigan. But without a doubt the most amazing part of the pigskin in Wisconsin's state capitol wasn't even the game - it was the post-game Badger band, performing its "fifth quarter celebration." In summary: it's a unique popurri of brainstorming music and dance, with fans playing along to everything from "Beer Barrel Polka" to the Chicken Dance.

Post-game, somehow, I got the green machine started again away as it stumbled down West Dayton Street in downtown Madison until it nearly died at a stop light. I witnessed some students in a two-story house patio drinking a few frosties and asked if I could park my green-ess at their house, and they obliged, setting in motion a delirious late Saturday and Sunday.

The car wouldn't start (this time, for real) after the evening Wisconsin hockey game and here I was hanging with a bunch of incredibly friendly, but very liquored Badger students, hoping to get to Green Bay for a Packers-Vikings game in less than 12 hours. Rent a car? Maybe, but instead, a trio of Wisconsin students hailing from Minnesota partying at this house decided they were Lambeau Field bound in their car with me as their designated driver. One, let's call him "Dan the Man," even allegedly text-messaged his mother, telling the packed house that she replied "and said, it's ok!" Oh, how sweet! What a good boy! After another four hours of sleep, by 7 a.m. Sunday, I was bound for Green Bay with three Wisconsin students I had met only hours earlier.

I drove. They slept. We arrived.

I made it to Lambeau and inside the 50-year-old haunt, thanks to a press pass. Each of my new-found friends weren't as lucky, unable to fork over the $175 asking price on the street. But, being they were all Vikings fans from Minnesota, perhaps its best they didn't spend a dime. Brett Favre and the Pack shutout the rival Vikes, 34-0.

Still, the pre-game, in-game and post-game atmosphere of Lambeau was unlike anything I have experienced before on the NFL circuit, with unbelievably passionate fans wearing their loyalty - literally on their heads. Lambeau was everything it was cracked to be and more - a historic venue marking its 50th anniversary with perhaps another Super Bowl bound team.

Post-game, I was bound back for Madison, with the trio who had viewed the rout in a bar across the street from "The Frozen Tundra." By 10 p.m., I had a plan to get my car looked at by a diesel-engine mechanic Monday morning. Beyond that, I simply basked in the amazement of the ultimate Saturday college-Sunday NFL fantasy football weekend taking place within the confines of the same state.

I would really like to thank the following kick-ass Wisconsin students and others for their awesome hospitality during my time in Dairyland: Doc Sports for the tickets, Ben from Maryland, and the gang on West Dayton Street and their clan - Adam, Mark, Greta, Zach, Dan and if I missed somebody, you know who you are, thanks so much!!

Update: Zimerick European in Madison fixed my fuel problem Monday, and I made it to Notre Dame for their men's hoops home opener in South Bend Monday night, in which the Irish won. Just another wild few days on the road. Only in America.