I had it all planned out: The Steelers would win out in the playoffs, I’d save a couple bucks from each paycheck, and—ticket or no ticket—I’d drive to Detroit for the Super Bowl.

This is no joke: I had housing lined up (my roommate’s parents still live in the D), and I’d started to gather info on parties and concerts and events I’d attend while in town (the Saturday night Kid Rock show looked especially promising). I’d keep a blog while I was there, and I already had a catchy header for it: “My blog! It’s so big!” (Because, you see, it was Super Bowl XL.)

And then the Steelers beat the Broncos. It all worked out as planned. I put up a new Tecmo preview, told my boss I’d be out on Monday, February 6, got my bags all packed.

And I went to Pittsburgh.

I’d like to say that it was watching Jerome Bettis mouth the words “we’re going home” at the end of the AFC Championship over and over, that the Bus’ story in so many ways mirrored my own. That this was my destiny. But that’s a little too poetic for me, and it’s not true. My trip to Pittsburgh had as little in common with the Bus’ trip home as my waistline does with his. The reason for my ride back to the ‘burgh was simple: Without a ticket, my trip to Detroit would be highlighted by hanging out with a few thousand Steeler fans, becoming a part of a pretty huge pilgrim community. And that’d have been nice. But in Pittsburgh, I’d become a part of a community of a million or so Steeler fans. As they say, numbers don’t lie. I planned to soak up some serious Steeler madness in Western PA.

And even if my trip wasn’t as poetic as the Bus’ drive to finish where he started and it didn’t have the cachet actually being AT the Super Bowl, Jerome was right about one thing: Going home is pretty awesome.

Of course, I had to get there first. I loaded up the car with a couple bags, a Steelers fight song CD, a kid whose Dad used to work with my mom (and whose sister is my cousin’s best friend…I love Pittsburgh) and my roommate and headed out onto the most boring 500-mile stretch of highway east of the Mississippi, covering the Ohio and Indiana turnpikes with only a Hardee’s or two to break the monotony.

I always have this romantic notion that as I enter Pittsburgh radio airspace, I’ll turn on WDVE and hear the three guitar attack of “Freebird,” that I’ll immediately be welcomed home by one of the city’s favorite songs, that there will be a sonic indication that you CAN go home again. But it never happens. And Friday was no different: I got a commercial for NBC’s Wednesday lineup, paid the ever-increasing $2.50 state gateway toll and pulled in at 2 a.m. during a Schults Ford commercial.

Determined to soak in as much Steelermania as I could during the weekend, and wanting to give my first-time-in-Pittsburgh friend the official “this is Greg’s life” tour, we awoke early Saturday morning to head to the Strip. Considering the district is teeming with Terrible Towelheads in mid-July, I was looking for, well, a mob.

I wasn’t disappointed. Every Italian grocery, biscotti bakery and gyro cart had converted itself into a memorabilia stand, shilling “Big Nasty D” shirts, “Troyzmanian Devil” and Ben Roethlis-“burger” hats by the gross. And people were just eating this stuff up: You couldn’t walk up, down, or across the street, for all of the fans buying apparel they mostly wouldn’t be caught dead in at about $15/shirt. It took more than an hour to cross the neighborhood, and we were trying to avoid the rain. The gridlock left us soaked, but left the virgin ‘Burgher impressed.

After a quick tour of downtown and a time-killing trip to the new Pittsburgh Mills (which is just fantastic. Across from a bowling alley that hinges its marketing on “Hey, this one hot chick has held a bowling ball before” is an indoor miniature golf course that incorporates black light sensitive paint and advertsises itself as “glow-in-the-dark.” And this is next to a coming-soon NASCAR-themed fun park. I love Pittsburgh.), we went to pick up some wings for my mom at the North Park Clubhouse. And THAT place was packed, too, with my former Legion coach and no less than six girls I went to high school with among a huge crowd of folks who like to dine and play. A guy set up karaoke as we heard “Here We Go” for the 40th time of the day, prompting my buddy to ask, “Do you think this song is offered for karaoke? Or would that start a riot?” After dropping off the chicken (my mother believes in restraint: she ordered 200 wings), we decided to keep the crazy crowd tour going, and headed for its most logical next stop: the South Side.

Admittedly, I haven’t spent much time on Pittsburgh’s South Side; when I left town, I was 18, and I haven’t been home much since. When I DO come home, it’s usually only for a day or two, and I’ve got so much family stuff to take care of that there isn’t time for a good round of debauchery. So when my friend Pat, also in town for the weekend, invited me to meet him at Mario’s—the bar I was most familiar with in the neighborhood—I was relieved, looking forward to hanging with hordes of overdressed Duquesne girls instead of hunting the streets for a watering hole I didn’t know.

Like everything else in town, the South Side was absolutely bananas: gridlocked cars with drivers hanging out the windows, laying on the horn and swinging Towels at passers-by who chanted “Here We Go” with the spill-out crowd from bar after bar. And it didn’t get milder inside: Mario’s was so crowded that I heard no less than four conversations about how great the men’s room sink is for urinating—high wall, low sink, little splashback. And this was acceptable conversation to everyone: from the college buddies I ran into to the three folks I went to high school with, all of whom wore jerseys as they drowned out the DJ with cheers of “Here We Go Steelers.” And at closing time, as we were being thrown out of Smokey Joe’s, these folks stood on the street and cheered some MORE, as if the end of alcohol sales was just another thing to celebrate. And you know what? It was.

But all of this Steeler madness, I expected. I knew the Strip would be nuts. I knew the South Side would be mind-boggling. What I didn’t expect was what faced me Sunday morning: a church full of jerseys, pews full of fans not satisfied to wait until they’d finished worshipping one God before bowing at the temple of the black-and-gold other. And this felt right to me.

So when the game concluded, after soaking up a Super Bowl with my parents, my brother, my cousins, my friends, after seeing men I’d so long idolized—Bettis, Ward, Cowher—get what they so rightly deserved, I wanted more. I hugged my father, kissed my family goodbye and jumped my Towel-toting butt into my car, intending to see it all. I laid on my horn with thousands of others, waved my arm numb and blared the Steelers Polka on repeat. I drove past hundreds lining the streets, only to discover the Carson was closed from miles around. But no matter: I ended up all over the city, screaming myself hoarse with the endless sea of fans that lined each street. When I finally called it a night, I was sure I’d seen it all.

The morning after, as I stood in line to purchase my Super Bowl Champions hat—the hat I’m wearing now, the hat I’ll wear whenever I write for the site—I wondered if I’d experienced this weekend as well as I might have in Detroit. Would the nights have been more meaningful in such a strange place, so close to the Steelers and surrounded by new friends? Would I regret my decision forever?

As I was thinking these things, I reached the front of the line. I looked up at my cashier, and recognized the guy: We went to grade school together.

Going home is pretty awesome.