I apologize if I haven't said much in the past few weeks. My stint in Seattle came to an end this past month, and I parlayed that with my cousin's wedding in Colorado to make for an epic trip across the American West. Here are some random thoughts from the trip.
-Most of the interior West would not exist if it were not for irrigation. Washington is supposed to be the Evergreen State, but most of the state is barren scrubland that's barely fit to run cattle on, much less farm.
-I didn't think that there were any mosquitoes in Utah. However, when we got out to change drivers at a rest stop on I-15 north of Ogden, we were ambushed by the monsters. I'm used to Minnesota mosquitoes, but these things were just as numerous and agressive. Washington State mosquitoes are slow, lazy, and easy to kill.
-My car (a 1990 Buick Park Avenue with a 3.8L V6 under the hood) got 28-29 MPG while roaring across Utah and Wyoming averaging 75+ MPH. This is with the trunk and back seat full of my crap.
-Why is 85-octane gas for sale in Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado? Altitude?
-My cousin and his bride are both Colorado Buffaloes, but her family is full of Nebraska Cornhuskers. There was a large TV showing VaTech-Nebraska outside the ballroom at the hotel the reception was being held at. Just as the best man took to the microphone to deliver his speech, yelling was heard out in the lobby. The door was quickly slammed shut, but it was still a bit embarassing. I learned later that this was the Huskers' punt return for a TD.
-I'm not bothered by very many things, but beef feed lots are truly the pillage of the earth. We drove past several in southern Idaho and northern Colorado. I realize the economics of agriculture are forcing up the size of operations, but ye gads! We drove past one on Highway 34 east of Greeley, and there had to be 75,000 head of cattle on about 50 acres of ground. And they stunk for two miles in all directions.
-There is a lot more civilization on Interstate 80 across Nebraska than there is on 90 or 94 across the Dakotas. Maybe that has something to do with the Platte River valley being the traditional highway west (the Pony Express, Oregon Trail, and the transcontinental railroad all parallel Interstate 80 at some point)
-The tallest building in the state of Nebraska is the state capitol building. However, as I saw it from I-80, the second-tallest appears to be the press box at Memorial Stadium. I'm gonna have to go there for a game someday.
-On the way back, we got a partial tour of the Big 12 North. Boulder, Lincoln, and Ames all were on our path of travel.
-I mentioned earlier getting 29-30 MPG roaring across Wyoming. The rest of the family that came to Colorado for the wedding drove an RV, and never bothered to take it above 65 to see what kind of mileage it would get. Following them back, I got the exact same mileage going 65. Go figure. Also, what should have been a 14-hour trip back dragged into 25.5 hours due to their paranoia about going a shred over 65.
-Since I no longer live in Washington, I'm going to have to figure out a new avatar. And no, I do NOT have the "SKIUMAH" plate that I had in my avatar. I got my normal plates before I thought about the "SKIUMAH" custom plate, and I didn't want to go through the trouble of getting another plate. Any suggestions are welcome.
2,275 miles, 8 states, and Lord only knows how many bottles of Coke later, I'm home. I'm looking forward to a bit of an unwind weekend in Madison this weekend.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
The 61st Axe: Random Thoughts
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2008
CAMP RANDALL STADIUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
MADISON, WISCONSIN
Some random thoughts, game and non, from this weekend's extravaganza in Mad-town:
-I bought a couple of car magnets, and I put them on the side of my car for the trip down on Friday afternoon. I got a few honks and waves, as well as a few middle fingers. You have a nice day too, sir.
-State Street Brats was swamped with Gopher fans on Friday night, taking over the upstairs. If looks could have killed, the Dane County coroner would have been a busy man.
-I don't like how Mad Hatter's is set up. No one downstairs while the upstairs resembles the Black Hole of Calcutta? Set it up like Burrito Loco here.
-I first found Silver Mine subs in Boulder, Colorado. The location next to Hatters' makes for a fine addition to the Madison late night menu.
-Finding cabs at bar time is a beyotch. My hotel was out on High Crossing Blvd., and by the time I found a cab that wasn't hired and got back, it was after 3:00 AM and my buzz was totally gone. Cabbies, if you're hired, TURN YOUR LIGHT OFF!
-Tailgating was great. One buddy of mine made arrangements with his sister's future in-laws for us tailgate with them. We were in the corner of the Regent Apartments parking lot. I also saw GopherLady, NateDawg, Crazy Tony, et al. at the same party.
-I know the U is going to have to learn how to do game-day tailgating once we get back home next year. However, I think that as long as Bob Bruininks is the president of the U, he's going to do everything he can to make it happen. The U is a better place because of him.
-My brother has poo-poohed the Gopher fan base, claming that we're going to want the Dome back as soon as a cold-weather game hits. Yesterday afternoon, it was cold, it was windy, and it started to snow at the end. And I loved it. Just how November football in Big Ten country ought to be. Sure I was frozen through by the time it was over, but it still was great.
-Good grief, was I getting flashbacks to "Punt Kucek Punt" when that kick return got muffed.
-Two points on the little rhubarb during "Jump Around." A) I have no problem with the Gopher bench jumping around like they did. It sure did pump 'em up. The only trouble was that it also pumped up everyone else in the stadium. Seeing the entire stadium doing it was a sight to behold. B) One friend of mine pointed out that the display was borne partly because few of the Gophers had been on the sideline of a game in Madison, and mostly as a "shot across the bow" at Wisconsin, saying something like "Hello Wisconsin! How do you like us breathing down your neck?"
-For all the Gophers' muffs, penalties, screw-ups, and other misadventures, they still had the ball with 2:30 to go with a chance to win or go to overtime. In hindsight, when I planned to come down, all I asked for was a game that wasn't decided midway through the first quarter, as my only other football trip to the Camp was.
-Was it just me, or was the band a little quick to start "Varsity" at the end of the game, before the Axe even got hoisted? I'm watching them hoist the Axe out of the bag just as the students get to the last "U-rah-rah Wisconsin!"
-I realized when I woke up this morning that other than one plate of heavenly cheesy potatoes, I drank ALL of my meals on Saturday. Fortunately, a Mickie's Dairy Bar scrambler was there to save the day. Not only do Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa share heated sporting rivalries, they also share quality breakfast locations (Al's Breakfast, Mickie's, and the Hamburg Inn).
Now only one more game in the Dump. And I still f'ing hate Iowa!
GR
CAMP RANDALL STADIUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
MADISON, WISCONSIN
Some random thoughts, game and non, from this weekend's extravaganza in Mad-town:
-I bought a couple of car magnets, and I put them on the side of my car for the trip down on Friday afternoon. I got a few honks and waves, as well as a few middle fingers. You have a nice day too, sir.
-State Street Brats was swamped with Gopher fans on Friday night, taking over the upstairs. If looks could have killed, the Dane County coroner would have been a busy man.
-I don't like how Mad Hatter's is set up. No one downstairs while the upstairs resembles the Black Hole of Calcutta? Set it up like Burrito Loco here.
-I first found Silver Mine subs in Boulder, Colorado. The location next to Hatters' makes for a fine addition to the Madison late night menu.
-Finding cabs at bar time is a beyotch. My hotel was out on High Crossing Blvd., and by the time I found a cab that wasn't hired and got back, it was after 3:00 AM and my buzz was totally gone. Cabbies, if you're hired, TURN YOUR LIGHT OFF!
-Tailgating was great. One buddy of mine made arrangements with his sister's future in-laws for us tailgate with them. We were in the corner of the Regent Apartments parking lot. I also saw GopherLady, NateDawg, Crazy Tony, et al. at the same party.
-I know the U is going to have to learn how to do game-day tailgating once we get back home next year. However, I think that as long as Bob Bruininks is the president of the U, he's going to do everything he can to make it happen. The U is a better place because of him.
-My brother has poo-poohed the Gopher fan base, claming that we're going to want the Dome back as soon as a cold-weather game hits. Yesterday afternoon, it was cold, it was windy, and it started to snow at the end. And I loved it. Just how November football in Big Ten country ought to be. Sure I was frozen through by the time it was over, but it still was great.
-Good grief, was I getting flashbacks to "Punt Kucek Punt" when that kick return got muffed.
-Two points on the little rhubarb during "Jump Around." A) I have no problem with the Gopher bench jumping around like they did. It sure did pump 'em up. The only trouble was that it also pumped up everyone else in the stadium. Seeing the entire stadium doing it was a sight to behold. B) One friend of mine pointed out that the display was borne partly because few of the Gophers had been on the sideline of a game in Madison, and mostly as a "shot across the bow" at Wisconsin, saying something like "Hello Wisconsin! How do you like us breathing down your neck?"
-For all the Gophers' muffs, penalties, screw-ups, and other misadventures, they still had the ball with 2:30 to go with a chance to win or go to overtime. In hindsight, when I planned to come down, all I asked for was a game that wasn't decided midway through the first quarter, as my only other football trip to the Camp was.
-Was it just me, or was the band a little quick to start "Varsity" at the end of the game, before the Axe even got hoisted? I'm watching them hoist the Axe out of the bag just as the students get to the last "U-rah-rah Wisconsin!"
-I realized when I woke up this morning that other than one plate of heavenly cheesy potatoes, I drank ALL of my meals on Saturday. Fortunately, a Mickie's Dairy Bar scrambler was there to save the day. Not only do Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa share heated sporting rivalries, they also share quality breakfast locations (Al's Breakfast, Mickie's, and the Hamburg Inn).
Now only one more game in the Dump. And I still f'ing hate Iowa!
GR
Monday, November 10, 2008
Trip Racap: 2008 CFN Board Meeting
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2008, 4:30 PM
CONCOURSE B AT MIDWAY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
It’s been a long day already. En route to the 2008 CFN Board Meeting, I’ve gotten caught in morning rush hour traffic in the Twin Cities, driven across a Wisconsin that is now eight different shades of drab gray, and roared through a driving rainstorm on the Northwest Tollway that reduced visibility to almost nothing. By the time I zap a text to ElTigreRex and 847Badgerfan, who are already in Nashville, I’m ready for a drink. However, those two gentlemen have already beaten me to the punch. A few minutes after I message them, Badge calls me back and informs me that I need to take a cab to the hotel, because they have been drinking all day and neither is sober enough to drive to the airport and get me. Ah, the Board Meeting has begun!
A bit of backstory here. It was determined at last year’s extravaganza in Austin, Texas that the next Board Meeting should take place in SEC country. A couple of weeks after that, the executive decision came down that this Board Meeting would take place in Nash-vegas (as the place is often referred to on SEC message boards). Since several of us (or friends of ours) had been there for bowl games, it was agreed that this would be a great place for it.
My flight from Midway to Nashville had a rough climbout due to said rainstorm, but once we got out of the soup, it was a smooth flight. This was the shortest flight that I had taken in at least three years. Being used to 3½ hour hauls to and from the West Coast (and last year’s 6-hour drag to Austin), it was surprising to start descending almost as soon as we got to cruise altitude. The Nashville airport is an easy airport to get through, but I found it to be a dump.
Since the Nashville street grid isn’t set at right angles relative to a north-south, my sense of direction was all discombobulated, and as such I was totally lost on the cab ride to the hotel. I was staying in the same room as TigerKing, and he met me in the lobby to get the hotel keys. Once I dumped my stuff off, we took a cab back downtown. We had a cabbie who was telling jokes that weren’t very tasteful in light of Tuesday’s election, and that’s not even close to describing how this cab ride went.
We met Badge in the lobby of his hotel, and end up eating dinner at an Irish pub. Badge and TigerKing have managed to drink the bar out of Johnny Walker Black, and in punishment we have to suffer through two guys trying to cover various country standards. They ended with a horrendous treatment of the Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Wagon Wheel.” Since we were all quite tired, we decided to withdraw to our hotels for the evening.
Next morning, Badge comes by our hotel with the minivan he rented to shuttle people around in. We head out to the airport to pick up MikeTheTiger and BurntEyes. After that, we head over towards the Vanderbilt campus to scout out places to drink the next day. Since it’s not 11 AM yet, none of the watering holes are open yet. We end up stopping at a place called the Corner Pub that is showing some signs of life. It was only 10:40, but the barmaid agreed to serve us drinks. It was here that most of the gang finally trickled in. UTErin, razorchique, theumrebel, buckeyecraazy, Gatorama, and DavidG all rolled in while we were at the Corner.
Shortly before 3, the party moved over to barbecue restaurant, across 5th Street from the hockey arena. Badge had arranged for us to take over one corner of their outside. This is where SunDevilFroggy, MarqHusker, and his wife came and joined the party. As for the food here, I was not overly impressed by their barbecue. I know that most Southern barbecue is pork-based compared with the Texas beef, but my biggest problem was that it was tough as nails. I’ve eaten good barbecued pork ribs (oddly enough from a joint on the eastside of Seattle), and these were not one of them. Usually pork ribs have a much higher meat-to-bone ratio than beef ribs, but these did not.
It was at this point that Badge pounded on the table and called the 2008 Board Meeting to order. The only thing that he did was order us to drink. Seeing that we had been doing that for some time already, the call ended up being more a “Bottoms up!” command than anything else.
We stayed here until nightfall, which is when the gang briefly retired to their hotels to change clothes and possibly eat supper. After a couple of hours, we met up at The Big Bang, a dueling piano bar on Broadway. I’d never been to one of these places, and it was pretty crazy. It was loud, raucous, bawdy, and an all-out blast. All things considered, the first day of the meeting went pretty well.
On the way back to the hotel, someone suggested that we stop through the Waffle House that is a hundred yards from the hotel. I’m riding with LilDawg, BuckeyeCraazy, and UTErin, and they’re looking at me as if I ought to find the number of this place so we can call in a to-go order. I tell them that I’ve never been in a Waffle House before in my life, and I haven’t a clue what to order. So they order their food, and by the time that they pass the phone to me, we’re pulling into the parking lot. Wonderful timing. They convince me to get an order of grits to try and eat. We end up eating our breakfast haul in Erin and BC’s room. LilDawg insists that the grits are the best thing since sliced bread, but I found them to be more efficient as brick mortar than as breakfast food.
Saturday morning dawned with continental breakfast at the hotel, then everyone converging on the Vanderbilt campus. We got parked about 10:30, and several of us walked into the campus to find a bookstore so we could get some souvenir swag. The campus of Vanderbilt University is a gorgeous little gem in the middle of Nashville. Both Badge and I commented that it was very similar to Northwestern University in Evanston (small but, and then a massive, modern hospital).
We had been recommended to a joint called Sam’s Place for watching the day’s games. A friend of Burny had recommended it, and it did not disappoint. The place opened at 11:00, and before long it became college football central. Other than our bunch, I counted at least a dozen different school colors in there, just for the early games. Sadly, unlike in the Buck Owens song, there were no waitresses named Hattie from Cincinnati or Rita, who hailed from Pasadena.
The 18 of us took over a corner of the front veranda, pushing tables together in a large L formation. At first, the waitress who was working our section of the restaurant was worried about us making our $10 minimum. We assured her that she would not be disappointed. The food and beer quickly started flowing while we digested the early games. Gator and I focused on the 91st Little Brown Jug, while everyone else paid attention to their games. If their team was on, they watched it, but most of the freelancers were watching the wild gunfight-at-the-OK-Corral that was Kentucky-Georgia. For a neutral observer, it must have been an interesting thing to see 18 different people screaming and yelling at different screens at the same time, trying to figure out which was which.
At this point, I should also mention that the city was overflowing with Florida Gator fans. I had at least six of them on my plane down from Chicago on Thursday. The actual makeup of the crowd at Sam’s was very heavy Florida Gator, with the other colors sprinkled among them, much like chunks of ice in a giant blue Slurpee.
The early games ended, and it appeared there was a bit of a “shift change,” if you will. Folks from the early teams left, and fans from the late games came in. Included in this bunch were a few Penn State fans in the back of the restaurant, and a decent-sized contingent of bammers at the other end of the veranda. As the game went on, someone in the group of bammers kept letting off these high-pitched, grating, fingernails-on-the-blackboard style screams whenever anything happened to Bama. Razorchique thought that it was a guy for a little while, only to find that the guilty part was a small, 5-foot-nothing beanpole of a girl.
We took our group picture when all three of the 2:30 games were at halftime, and then things got REAL interesting in the second half. Penn State had their chances to draw away from Iowa, but the chickens played some tough D. For one afternoon, all the SEC folks in the bar became really big Iowa Hawkeye fans. Also, for some reason that I could not fathom, all the Florida fans in the bar were cheering for Bama.
The crowd exploded when Iowa hit their FG, but Badge and I laughed our butts off when the Idiots Out Wandering Around students charged the field with one second left, setting up what could have been a big choke job. But give the Hawks credit, they were able to avoid a The Play-like return. They’re going to be a tough out the rest of the way.
The seminal moment of the weekend took place late in regulation of LSU-Alabama, after PSU-Iowa had ended. All of us at the CFN table were cheering like mad for LSU, partially because MikeDeTiger was in our midst, and mostly because the shrieking bammer from the other end of the veranda was getting REALLY annoying at this point. Anyway, John Parker Wilson broke off a 40-something yard touchdown run. The Florida and Bama fans were going nuts, with plenty of shrieking. The more eagle-eyed observers among us had noticed that the Bama backfield was littered with yellow penalty markers. Sure enough, it was a holding penalty that wiped the touchdown, and caused our table to go just as ballistic. The blocked field goal at the end of regulation drew a similar reaction.
After the end of overtime, we all closed our tabs, and then the group split up. Big kudos to the waitress. How she kept our drinks filled and the tabs straightened out is beyond me. Most folks went to another bar, but some of us decided to see if we could actually get into the game without forking over an arm and a leg. Several contacts assured us that it wouldn’t be any trouble. The walk to the stadium was kind of surreal. Normally, with the game a short time away from kicking off, there’s a lot more buzz and foot traffic around the campus. There wasn’t much of anything happening until you were three blocks from the stadium. We hawked tickets for $40, and went in, hoping that we could meet up at some point. The five of us that went in were SDF, MDT, LilDawg, BuckeyeCraazy, and myself.
Vanderbilt Stadium is by far the smallest stadium in the SEC, and may well be the smallest football stadium in any BCS conference east of the Rockies. I’ve been to a few stadiums in different portions of the country, and I have to tell you that this was the worst college football stadium I’ve ever been in. Even Reser Stadium at Oregon State, which has a similar capacity, is vastly superior to Vandy. Most of the places I’ve been would eat this joint for lunch and still have room for dessert. When we got in there, the stadium was well over half full of Gator fans. I am aware that football is a distant afterthought on the brainpower campuses, but I didn’t think it was that bad.
Either way, this was the first time I’d seen an SEC game in person. A basketball-sized pep band from Florida was there, and they were keeping the crowd well into it. On the field, the Gators were doing whatever they wanted to whenever they wanted to. The offense looked like a well-oiled machine that was FAST. The Gators didn’t start in their own territory until after the second quarter, which meant that all the action was in front of us in the early goings.
The five of us got back together early in the second quarter, and we quickly found ourselves surrounded by kindred folks who wore a similar spread of gear that we had (We had tOSU, Miami Ohio, and a couple of others around us). They thought it was really cool how we all post on a message board and get together once a year.
The game was lousy, and the only thing that kept us in there as long as we did (we stayed to the end of the 3rd when Urban Meyer pulled Tim Tebow and Co.) was the funnel cakes the ladies ordered at halftime. BuckeyeCraazy’s peacoat ended up covered with powdered sugar, since she happened to be on the downwind end of all the funnel cakes.
Once we got out of the stadium, we started calling around to see where everyone went. It turns out that most folks had gone back to the hotel, with a few going back to bed. We stopped at a Quick-Sack for some beer, and joined the gang that was at our Holiday Inn Express. We watched the postgame from USC-Cal and Texas Tech-Oklahoma, drank more beer, and discussed where we might want to take this flying circus next year.
On Sunday morning, the people who were staying at our hotel, plus SDF and MDT who cabbed it over from their hotel, invaded the Waffle House that was a hundred yards from our hotel. I’m a big fan of the waffles and hash browns, but the biscuits and gravy were ice cold. We bid our adieus outside here, which is always tough, but we know that we’ll do it again before too long.
Granted, I’ve only been to two of these things, but I’m always a bit sad when I leave events like this. I’ve had a really crappy-ass year, but I know that for one weekend every year, everything can be right with the world.
The drive from Midway Airport in Chicago back to Minnesota was long but uneventful. I will let you guys in on one thing I do every time I drive across the border from Wisconsin to Minnesota. As part of a college song podcast, I have “Varsity” on my iPod. I play “Varsity,” then go right to the Rouser with the full opening fanfare. I’ve timed it such that when they get to the start of the Rouser, I’m crossing the river bridge into civilization/Minnesota. On a related note, I also play “Hail Minnesota” whenever I leave the state. Go figure.
I’ve got two more college football games on my slate, this week in Madison for the Axe game, then the last Gopher game ever in the Metrodome the following Saturday. I’ll catch you then.
GR
CONCOURSE B AT MIDWAY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
It’s been a long day already. En route to the 2008 CFN Board Meeting, I’ve gotten caught in morning rush hour traffic in the Twin Cities, driven across a Wisconsin that is now eight different shades of drab gray, and roared through a driving rainstorm on the Northwest Tollway that reduced visibility to almost nothing. By the time I zap a text to ElTigreRex and 847Badgerfan, who are already in Nashville, I’m ready for a drink. However, those two gentlemen have already beaten me to the punch. A few minutes after I message them, Badge calls me back and informs me that I need to take a cab to the hotel, because they have been drinking all day and neither is sober enough to drive to the airport and get me. Ah, the Board Meeting has begun!
A bit of backstory here. It was determined at last year’s extravaganza in Austin, Texas that the next Board Meeting should take place in SEC country. A couple of weeks after that, the executive decision came down that this Board Meeting would take place in Nash-vegas (as the place is often referred to on SEC message boards). Since several of us (or friends of ours) had been there for bowl games, it was agreed that this would be a great place for it.
My flight from Midway to Nashville had a rough climbout due to said rainstorm, but once we got out of the soup, it was a smooth flight. This was the shortest flight that I had taken in at least three years. Being used to 3½ hour hauls to and from the West Coast (and last year’s 6-hour drag to Austin), it was surprising to start descending almost as soon as we got to cruise altitude. The Nashville airport is an easy airport to get through, but I found it to be a dump.
Since the Nashville street grid isn’t set at right angles relative to a north-south, my sense of direction was all discombobulated, and as such I was totally lost on the cab ride to the hotel. I was staying in the same room as TigerKing, and he met me in the lobby to get the hotel keys. Once I dumped my stuff off, we took a cab back downtown. We had a cabbie who was telling jokes that weren’t very tasteful in light of Tuesday’s election, and that’s not even close to describing how this cab ride went.
We met Badge in the lobby of his hotel, and end up eating dinner at an Irish pub. Badge and TigerKing have managed to drink the bar out of Johnny Walker Black, and in punishment we have to suffer through two guys trying to cover various country standards. They ended with a horrendous treatment of the Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Wagon Wheel.” Since we were all quite tired, we decided to withdraw to our hotels for the evening.
Next morning, Badge comes by our hotel with the minivan he rented to shuttle people around in. We head out to the airport to pick up MikeTheTiger and BurntEyes. After that, we head over towards the Vanderbilt campus to scout out places to drink the next day. Since it’s not 11 AM yet, none of the watering holes are open yet. We end up stopping at a place called the Corner Pub that is showing some signs of life. It was only 10:40, but the barmaid agreed to serve us drinks. It was here that most of the gang finally trickled in. UTErin, razorchique, theumrebel, buckeyecraazy, Gatorama, and DavidG all rolled in while we were at the Corner.
Shortly before 3, the party moved over to barbecue restaurant, across 5th Street from the hockey arena. Badge had arranged for us to take over one corner of their outside. This is where SunDevilFroggy, MarqHusker, and his wife came and joined the party. As for the food here, I was not overly impressed by their barbecue. I know that most Southern barbecue is pork-based compared with the Texas beef, but my biggest problem was that it was tough as nails. I’ve eaten good barbecued pork ribs (oddly enough from a joint on the eastside of Seattle), and these were not one of them. Usually pork ribs have a much higher meat-to-bone ratio than beef ribs, but these did not.
It was at this point that Badge pounded on the table and called the 2008 Board Meeting to order. The only thing that he did was order us to drink. Seeing that we had been doing that for some time already, the call ended up being more a “Bottoms up!” command than anything else.
We stayed here until nightfall, which is when the gang briefly retired to their hotels to change clothes and possibly eat supper. After a couple of hours, we met up at The Big Bang, a dueling piano bar on Broadway. I’d never been to one of these places, and it was pretty crazy. It was loud, raucous, bawdy, and an all-out blast. All things considered, the first day of the meeting went pretty well.
On the way back to the hotel, someone suggested that we stop through the Waffle House that is a hundred yards from the hotel. I’m riding with LilDawg, BuckeyeCraazy, and UTErin, and they’re looking at me as if I ought to find the number of this place so we can call in a to-go order. I tell them that I’ve never been in a Waffle House before in my life, and I haven’t a clue what to order. So they order their food, and by the time that they pass the phone to me, we’re pulling into the parking lot. Wonderful timing. They convince me to get an order of grits to try and eat. We end up eating our breakfast haul in Erin and BC’s room. LilDawg insists that the grits are the best thing since sliced bread, but I found them to be more efficient as brick mortar than as breakfast food.
Saturday morning dawned with continental breakfast at the hotel, then everyone converging on the Vanderbilt campus. We got parked about 10:30, and several of us walked into the campus to find a bookstore so we could get some souvenir swag. The campus of Vanderbilt University is a gorgeous little gem in the middle of Nashville. Both Badge and I commented that it was very similar to Northwestern University in Evanston (small but, and then a massive, modern hospital).
We had been recommended to a joint called Sam’s Place for watching the day’s games. A friend of Burny had recommended it, and it did not disappoint. The place opened at 11:00, and before long it became college football central. Other than our bunch, I counted at least a dozen different school colors in there, just for the early games. Sadly, unlike in the Buck Owens song, there were no waitresses named Hattie from Cincinnati or Rita, who hailed from Pasadena.
The 18 of us took over a corner of the front veranda, pushing tables together in a large L formation. At first, the waitress who was working our section of the restaurant was worried about us making our $10 minimum. We assured her that she would not be disappointed. The food and beer quickly started flowing while we digested the early games. Gator and I focused on the 91st Little Brown Jug, while everyone else paid attention to their games. If their team was on, they watched it, but most of the freelancers were watching the wild gunfight-at-the-OK-Corral that was Kentucky-Georgia. For a neutral observer, it must have been an interesting thing to see 18 different people screaming and yelling at different screens at the same time, trying to figure out which was which.
At this point, I should also mention that the city was overflowing with Florida Gator fans. I had at least six of them on my plane down from Chicago on Thursday. The actual makeup of the crowd at Sam’s was very heavy Florida Gator, with the other colors sprinkled among them, much like chunks of ice in a giant blue Slurpee.
The early games ended, and it appeared there was a bit of a “shift change,” if you will. Folks from the early teams left, and fans from the late games came in. Included in this bunch were a few Penn State fans in the back of the restaurant, and a decent-sized contingent of bammers at the other end of the veranda. As the game went on, someone in the group of bammers kept letting off these high-pitched, grating, fingernails-on-the-blackboard style screams whenever anything happened to Bama. Razorchique thought that it was a guy for a little while, only to find that the guilty part was a small, 5-foot-nothing beanpole of a girl.
We took our group picture when all three of the 2:30 games were at halftime, and then things got REAL interesting in the second half. Penn State had their chances to draw away from Iowa, but the chickens played some tough D. For one afternoon, all the SEC folks in the bar became really big Iowa Hawkeye fans. Also, for some reason that I could not fathom, all the Florida fans in the bar were cheering for Bama.
The crowd exploded when Iowa hit their FG, but Badge and I laughed our butts off when the Idiots Out Wandering Around students charged the field with one second left, setting up what could have been a big choke job. But give the Hawks credit, they were able to avoid a The Play-like return. They’re going to be a tough out the rest of the way.
The seminal moment of the weekend took place late in regulation of LSU-Alabama, after PSU-Iowa had ended. All of us at the CFN table were cheering like mad for LSU, partially because MikeDeTiger was in our midst, and mostly because the shrieking bammer from the other end of the veranda was getting REALLY annoying at this point. Anyway, John Parker Wilson broke off a 40-something yard touchdown run. The Florida and Bama fans were going nuts, with plenty of shrieking. The more eagle-eyed observers among us had noticed that the Bama backfield was littered with yellow penalty markers. Sure enough, it was a holding penalty that wiped the touchdown, and caused our table to go just as ballistic. The blocked field goal at the end of regulation drew a similar reaction.
After the end of overtime, we all closed our tabs, and then the group split up. Big kudos to the waitress. How she kept our drinks filled and the tabs straightened out is beyond me. Most folks went to another bar, but some of us decided to see if we could actually get into the game without forking over an arm and a leg. Several contacts assured us that it wouldn’t be any trouble. The walk to the stadium was kind of surreal. Normally, with the game a short time away from kicking off, there’s a lot more buzz and foot traffic around the campus. There wasn’t much of anything happening until you were three blocks from the stadium. We hawked tickets for $40, and went in, hoping that we could meet up at some point. The five of us that went in were SDF, MDT, LilDawg, BuckeyeCraazy, and myself.
Vanderbilt Stadium is by far the smallest stadium in the SEC, and may well be the smallest football stadium in any BCS conference east of the Rockies. I’ve been to a few stadiums in different portions of the country, and I have to tell you that this was the worst college football stadium I’ve ever been in. Even Reser Stadium at Oregon State, which has a similar capacity, is vastly superior to Vandy. Most of the places I’ve been would eat this joint for lunch and still have room for dessert. When we got in there, the stadium was well over half full of Gator fans. I am aware that football is a distant afterthought on the brainpower campuses, but I didn’t think it was that bad.
Either way, this was the first time I’d seen an SEC game in person. A basketball-sized pep band from Florida was there, and they were keeping the crowd well into it. On the field, the Gators were doing whatever they wanted to whenever they wanted to. The offense looked like a well-oiled machine that was FAST. The Gators didn’t start in their own territory until after the second quarter, which meant that all the action was in front of us in the early goings.
The five of us got back together early in the second quarter, and we quickly found ourselves surrounded by kindred folks who wore a similar spread of gear that we had (We had tOSU, Miami Ohio, and a couple of others around us). They thought it was really cool how we all post on a message board and get together once a year.
The game was lousy, and the only thing that kept us in there as long as we did (we stayed to the end of the 3rd when Urban Meyer pulled Tim Tebow and Co.) was the funnel cakes the ladies ordered at halftime. BuckeyeCraazy’s peacoat ended up covered with powdered sugar, since she happened to be on the downwind end of all the funnel cakes.
Once we got out of the stadium, we started calling around to see where everyone went. It turns out that most folks had gone back to the hotel, with a few going back to bed. We stopped at a Quick-Sack for some beer, and joined the gang that was at our Holiday Inn Express. We watched the postgame from USC-Cal and Texas Tech-Oklahoma, drank more beer, and discussed where we might want to take this flying circus next year.
On Sunday morning, the people who were staying at our hotel, plus SDF and MDT who cabbed it over from their hotel, invaded the Waffle House that was a hundred yards from our hotel. I’m a big fan of the waffles and hash browns, but the biscuits and gravy were ice cold. We bid our adieus outside here, which is always tough, but we know that we’ll do it again before too long.
Granted, I’ve only been to two of these things, but I’m always a bit sad when I leave events like this. I’ve had a really crappy-ass year, but I know that for one weekend every year, everything can be right with the world.
The drive from Midway Airport in Chicago back to Minnesota was long but uneventful. I will let you guys in on one thing I do every time I drive across the border from Wisconsin to Minnesota. As part of a college song podcast, I have “Varsity” on my iPod. I play “Varsity,” then go right to the Rouser with the full opening fanfare. I’ve timed it such that when they get to the start of the Rouser, I’m crossing the river bridge into civilization/Minnesota. On a related note, I also play “Hail Minnesota” whenever I leave the state. Go figure.
I’ve got two more college football games on my slate, this week in Madison for the Axe game, then the last Gopher game ever in the Metrodome the following Saturday. I’ll catch you then.
GR
“Trip Recap: Ohio State at Wisconsin, October 4, 2008”
“Trip Recap: Ohio State at Wisconsin, October 4, 2008”
OR
“I didn’t just drive all the way from Minneapolis to watch an NFL game, did I?”
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2008
CAMP RANDALL STADIUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
MADISON, WISCONSIN
This past weekend brought me down to Madison for a rare night game at Camp Randall Stadium, this time against the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Perhaps I had better back up and cue you in on the backstory of what brought me to Madtown this weekend. It’s been a crazy month for me. I’ve moved back to the Midwest from Seattle over the course of September, as well as dealing with/staying out of the way of all of my blood relatives at a wedding in Colorado. To celebrate surviving this gauntlet, as well as reinforcing my enjoyment of college football, I asked 847Badgerfan if I could come down to Madison for a night game at the Camp against Ohio State. He gladly agreed, and I made the necessary arrangements to make the epic drive across Wisconsin. Before you call me bat-guano crazy for going to Madison to see a non-Gopher Badger game, I like college football too much to let something petty like archrivalry get in the way of enjoying the game.
Other than the 400-mile distance, the drive from Minneapolis to Kenosha on Friday afternoon was uneventful, for the most part. On I-894 around downtown Milwaukee, a truck was stopped in the left lane, jamming up traffic on the southbound side. I thought he had killed his motor until I got around him and saw why he was stopped in the traffic lane instead of pulled off to the median. It appeared that someone had hit a dog, and he stopped in the traffic lane to get the corpse off to the side. That drive should get a nice fat illegal stopping ticket.
I’ve been trying all summer to get down there, but this was the first time I’d been down to see Badge’s boat. He has a very nice setup, and the other folks that were there were fantastic people. We ate dinner with a one of them at the Kenosha Yacht Club. Badge’s friend then brought us back to his boat and served us the most lethal white Russians any of us have ever had. There was no messing around with those drinks. After three of them, we staggered across the dock to our sleeping quarters.
6:00 Saturday morning came way too early, and after hitting the boathouse for a shower, we were on the road to Madison. Before we got on I-94 in Kenosha, we stopped into a McDonalds for a McMuffin to keep our stomachs occupied. I saw a stack of Milwaukee Journal-Sentinels stacked next to the register. Something about “UW band” caught my eye, and I went over for a closer look. The headline, above the fold and in boldface, said something along the lines of “UW Marching Band Shelved.” Below was the article outlining why the band had gotten suspended. I showed this in disbelief to Badge and Gator, and it took a while for the news to sink into their heads as well. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that they were feeling just as awful as I was.
There was a lot of company on 94 between Milwaukee and Madison, but for some reason the coffee I had with breakfast was doing nothing for me, as I was yawning like crazy all the way up to the hotel. We parked the other vehicles at the hotel, then headed over to their tailgate lot on Regent Street. We arrived shortly after 10:00 AM, and there was already more life around the campus than there has ever been 9 hours before a night kickoff in Minneapolis.
Between my seized-up back and a wicked hangover from those white Russians, I was not feeling too chipper. After the first round of brats had been served, I crawled up in the Tahoe for a brief siesta. I was out of it for about 40 minutes, and I felt much better once I woke up.
The band suspension was the talk of the tailgate, at least in the early goings. Personally, I’m withholding judgment on the situation. On the one hand, not having the band at Camp Randall was a loss not only for the Badgers and their faithful, but all of college football. If the University of Wisconsin Marching Band isn’t the best band in the country, they aren’t far from it. This also has the makings of a nasty power struggle, with all accounts saying that the director made no consultation with any higher-ups before making the call. On the other hand, whatever happened on that bus must have been a real doozy in order for the director to get that wound up. Regardless of what comes out of this, I think it’s safe to say that the UW band won’t be going to Ann Arbor again anytime soon.
The spread of food put out at the tailgate was hard to beat. Bratwurst on multiple occasions, hamburgers, hot homemade soup, pulled pork, macaroni and cheese, lots of dips, bacon-wrapped jalapeños, and probably a dozen other things that I forgot about. Every bit of it was fantastic. I really liked the mac-and-cheese, not just for the spiral noodles they used, but whatever else got mixed into it. Someone said it was creamed corn.
Gatorama had not been feeling well all day, and around 5:00 he decided to go back to the hotel. When trying to unload his ticket, I found out the hard way how rancid the re-sale market was. A little while later, WifeOfBadgerfan went back to the hotel to stay with him. I managed to get $45 for the two of them, and I had to work very hard to get that much.
The band getting shelved made a big difference in game atmosphere. I’ve been there before for a Gopher game, and even though the game was effectively over midway through the first, the band kept everyone much more involved than if nothing was keeping the crowd around. Canned music played with the volume pegged doesn’t make for much of a college football game. I didn’t drive all the way down from Minneapolis just to watch an NFL game. However, the crowd in there last night was a very smart bunch. They knew when to
I also found it VERY strange that the recording of “Varsity” that was played during halftime wasn’t played after the end of the game. The tOSU fans and team were belting away on “Carmen Ohio” even without any musical accompaniment, “Varsity” shows up at all other Badger events, and even “Hail Minnesota” is a postgame staple at all of our athletic events. Someone dropped the ball big-time on that one.
On the way back to the tailgate lot, a conversation was overheard between two Ohio State fans. It went something like this: “I have heard nothing good about the Wisconsin fans ever since that 2003 game. I was the only Buckeye in a whole section of Badgers, but it ended up being a great time as we were surrounded by great people.” I didn’t notice any other altercations between Buckeyes and Badgers, and the Buckeye fans that came by our lot were all very friendly.
The group that tailgates with Badge has some of the nicest folks you ever met in your life. I plan on being down there again on November 15 for the Gopher game.
Sunday morning I went to Mass at the UW Newman Center at the west end of State Street, then ate breakfast at Mickey’s Dairy Bar, across from the Fieldhouse on Monroe Street. Mickey’s is a must-eat place for visitors to Madison, as the pancakes are big and very, very tasty. It poured rain most of the way back to the Twin Cities, so I got a free car wash out of the deal.
Some brief thoughts on the actual game:
This isn’t the first time that BB’s time management skills have cost the Badgers a win, and nor will it be the last.
I can see John Clay becoming an Anthony Davis-style thorn in the Gophers’ side. It seemed as if Davis always went for about 250 yards and 3 TDs whenever he played the Gophs. However, that would require the coaches to keep giving him the rock, and the Badger coaching staff seems quite content with PJ Hill getting stuffed at the line of scrimmage every time.
Terelle Pryor is a horse. There were a few rookie mistakes (a couple of bad sacks where he had all day to throw it away and took a 10+ yard loss), but there was still plenty of brilliance too. He was able to shake off the first man more than once without slowing down.
Say what you will about the Badgers’ inability to defend it, but that option was a brilliant call by tOSU on the go-ahead TD. Put the ball in the hands of your two best players (Pryor at QB and Wells as the pitchman) and let ‘em loose. Granted, Wells hadn’t been doing much in the second half, but it was still a great call. I once saw the Gophers run an option on a had-to-have 2-point conversion, with Brian Cupito at QB and Marion Barber III and Lawrence Maroney as the pitchmen. Needless to say, they got the conversion.
If the Badgers had Adam Weber at the helm, they would be undefeated and a sizable favorite over Penn State this Saturday night. Everidge single-handedly cost them this game. On the last series, the Badgers had way too far to go and not enough time to get there for Everidge to be running around in the backfield like that, on 1st down no less. If no one is open, roll out, throw it away, and try it again on second down. And make sure you don’t go over the line of scrimmage before you do. Instead, the last interception gets thrown without a single red jersey within striking distance of catching the pass.
A big thank you to everyone who I ran into this weekend for making it a blast. If you ever get the chance to go to a night game in Madison, go!
OR
“I didn’t just drive all the way from Minneapolis to watch an NFL game, did I?”
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2008
CAMP RANDALL STADIUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
MADISON, WISCONSIN
This past weekend brought me down to Madison for a rare night game at Camp Randall Stadium, this time against the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Perhaps I had better back up and cue you in on the backstory of what brought me to Madtown this weekend. It’s been a crazy month for me. I’ve moved back to the Midwest from Seattle over the course of September, as well as dealing with/staying out of the way of all of my blood relatives at a wedding in Colorado. To celebrate surviving this gauntlet, as well as reinforcing my enjoyment of college football, I asked 847Badgerfan if I could come down to Madison for a night game at the Camp against Ohio State. He gladly agreed, and I made the necessary arrangements to make the epic drive across Wisconsin. Before you call me bat-guano crazy for going to Madison to see a non-Gopher Badger game, I like college football too much to let something petty like archrivalry get in the way of enjoying the game.
Other than the 400-mile distance, the drive from Minneapolis to Kenosha on Friday afternoon was uneventful, for the most part. On I-894 around downtown Milwaukee, a truck was stopped in the left lane, jamming up traffic on the southbound side. I thought he had killed his motor until I got around him and saw why he was stopped in the traffic lane instead of pulled off to the median. It appeared that someone had hit a dog, and he stopped in the traffic lane to get the corpse off to the side. That drive should get a nice fat illegal stopping ticket.
I’ve been trying all summer to get down there, but this was the first time I’d been down to see Badge’s boat. He has a very nice setup, and the other folks that were there were fantastic people. We ate dinner with a one of them at the Kenosha Yacht Club. Badge’s friend then brought us back to his boat and served us the most lethal white Russians any of us have ever had. There was no messing around with those drinks. After three of them, we staggered across the dock to our sleeping quarters.
6:00 Saturday morning came way too early, and after hitting the boathouse for a shower, we were on the road to Madison. Before we got on I-94 in Kenosha, we stopped into a McDonalds for a McMuffin to keep our stomachs occupied. I saw a stack of Milwaukee Journal-Sentinels stacked next to the register. Something about “UW band” caught my eye, and I went over for a closer look. The headline, above the fold and in boldface, said something along the lines of “UW Marching Band Shelved.” Below was the article outlining why the band had gotten suspended. I showed this in disbelief to Badge and Gator, and it took a while for the news to sink into their heads as well. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that they were feeling just as awful as I was.
There was a lot of company on 94 between Milwaukee and Madison, but for some reason the coffee I had with breakfast was doing nothing for me, as I was yawning like crazy all the way up to the hotel. We parked the other vehicles at the hotel, then headed over to their tailgate lot on Regent Street. We arrived shortly after 10:00 AM, and there was already more life around the campus than there has ever been 9 hours before a night kickoff in Minneapolis.
Between my seized-up back and a wicked hangover from those white Russians, I was not feeling too chipper. After the first round of brats had been served, I crawled up in the Tahoe for a brief siesta. I was out of it for about 40 minutes, and I felt much better once I woke up.
The band suspension was the talk of the tailgate, at least in the early goings. Personally, I’m withholding judgment on the situation. On the one hand, not having the band at Camp Randall was a loss not only for the Badgers and their faithful, but all of college football. If the University of Wisconsin Marching Band isn’t the best band in the country, they aren’t far from it. This also has the makings of a nasty power struggle, with all accounts saying that the director made no consultation with any higher-ups before making the call. On the other hand, whatever happened on that bus must have been a real doozy in order for the director to get that wound up. Regardless of what comes out of this, I think it’s safe to say that the UW band won’t be going to Ann Arbor again anytime soon.
The spread of food put out at the tailgate was hard to beat. Bratwurst on multiple occasions, hamburgers, hot homemade soup, pulled pork, macaroni and cheese, lots of dips, bacon-wrapped jalapeños, and probably a dozen other things that I forgot about. Every bit of it was fantastic. I really liked the mac-and-cheese, not just for the spiral noodles they used, but whatever else got mixed into it. Someone said it was creamed corn.
Gatorama had not been feeling well all day, and around 5:00 he decided to go back to the hotel. When trying to unload his ticket, I found out the hard way how rancid the re-sale market was. A little while later, WifeOfBadgerfan went back to the hotel to stay with him. I managed to get $45 for the two of them, and I had to work very hard to get that much.
The band getting shelved made a big difference in game atmosphere. I’ve been there before for a Gopher game, and even though the game was effectively over midway through the first, the band kept everyone much more involved than if nothing was keeping the crowd around. Canned music played with the volume pegged doesn’t make for much of a college football game. I didn’t drive all the way down from Minneapolis just to watch an NFL game. However, the crowd in there last night was a very smart bunch. They knew when to
I also found it VERY strange that the recording of “Varsity” that was played during halftime wasn’t played after the end of the game. The tOSU fans and team were belting away on “Carmen Ohio” even without any musical accompaniment, “Varsity” shows up at all other Badger events, and even “Hail Minnesota” is a postgame staple at all of our athletic events. Someone dropped the ball big-time on that one.
On the way back to the tailgate lot, a conversation was overheard between two Ohio State fans. It went something like this: “I have heard nothing good about the Wisconsin fans ever since that 2003 game. I was the only Buckeye in a whole section of Badgers, but it ended up being a great time as we were surrounded by great people.” I didn’t notice any other altercations between Buckeyes and Badgers, and the Buckeye fans that came by our lot were all very friendly.
The group that tailgates with Badge has some of the nicest folks you ever met in your life. I plan on being down there again on November 15 for the Gopher game.
Sunday morning I went to Mass at the UW Newman Center at the west end of State Street, then ate breakfast at Mickey’s Dairy Bar, across from the Fieldhouse on Monroe Street. Mickey’s is a must-eat place for visitors to Madison, as the pancakes are big and very, very tasty. It poured rain most of the way back to the Twin Cities, so I got a free car wash out of the deal.
Some brief thoughts on the actual game:
This isn’t the first time that BB’s time management skills have cost the Badgers a win, and nor will it be the last.
I can see John Clay becoming an Anthony Davis-style thorn in the Gophers’ side. It seemed as if Davis always went for about 250 yards and 3 TDs whenever he played the Gophs. However, that would require the coaches to keep giving him the rock, and the Badger coaching staff seems quite content with PJ Hill getting stuffed at the line of scrimmage every time.
Terelle Pryor is a horse. There were a few rookie mistakes (a couple of bad sacks where he had all day to throw it away and took a 10+ yard loss), but there was still plenty of brilliance too. He was able to shake off the first man more than once without slowing down.
Say what you will about the Badgers’ inability to defend it, but that option was a brilliant call by tOSU on the go-ahead TD. Put the ball in the hands of your two best players (Pryor at QB and Wells as the pitchman) and let ‘em loose. Granted, Wells hadn’t been doing much in the second half, but it was still a great call. I once saw the Gophers run an option on a had-to-have 2-point conversion, with Brian Cupito at QB and Marion Barber III and Lawrence Maroney as the pitchmen. Needless to say, they got the conversion.
If the Badgers had Adam Weber at the helm, they would be undefeated and a sizable favorite over Penn State this Saturday night. Everidge single-handedly cost them this game. On the last series, the Badgers had way too far to go and not enough time to get there for Everidge to be running around in the backfield like that, on 1st down no less. If no one is open, roll out, throw it away, and try it again on second down. And make sure you don’t go over the line of scrimmage before you do. Instead, the last interception gets thrown without a single red jersey within striking distance of catching the pass.
A big thank you to everyone who I ran into this weekend for making it a blast. If you ever get the chance to go to a night game in Madison, go!
Monday, July 21, 2008
TR: The Super-Sized Barnyard Road Trip, 1/30/08-2/3/08
THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 2008
4:55 AM EST
ON THE RAMP AT DETROIT METRO-WAYNE COUNTY AIRPORT
ROMULUS, MICHIGAN
It’s been a short rest period onboard Northwest Airlines flight #208, a red-eye from Seattle to Detroit. As I gather up my stuff on this very empty 757, I take inventory of what I’ve got before I leave the plane. Rolloff? Check. Winter coat? Check. Messenger bag? Messenger bag…uh-oh….
Five hours earlier at SeaTac airport…
Bread bowls of Ivar’s clam chowder are one of the greatest things ever invented. First you have Ivar’s clam chowder, which is the best clam chowder known to man. Second, you have a bread bowl. Put ‘em together, and how much better can you get? Anyhow, I’d put my messenger bag on the chair across the table from me, and after I’d scarfed down the chowder I grabbed my coat and rolloff and head for the gate. The only problem is that I forgot to pick up my messenger bag, which means that my iPod, headphones, and a bunch of other semi-important things will be spending the weekend at SeaTac Airport, if not in someone else’s bag.
However, seeing that there wasn’t anything I could do about it until 11 AM Eastern (thanks to the time difference) I figured I better find a nice, quiet, unused gate and try to sleep for a while. Fortunately, even though Northwest has flights to just about everywhere out of DTW, several gates do go unoccupied, and I’m able to zonk out for a while, until it’s time to go get the rental car.
I get the rental car (a Mazda G6), and I decide to drive the freeway around downtown Detroit. Good grief, is that a depressing drive. I went around the waterfront past the Cobo Hall and Joe Louis Arena, and is that downtown ever dead. This is at 9:00 on a Thursday morning and NOTHING is happening.
I decide to get out of there while I still have all my limbs attached, and go back out I-94 towards Ann Arbor. By this time, the lost-and-found offices at SeaTac have opened, and I’m able to call the missing-object report in from a Denny’s on the way to Ann Arbor.
Getting off the freeway, and I drive up M-243 into the campus of the University of Michigan. The campus is fairly accessible by vehicle, and I do some scouting out of locations of potential bar visits later in the evening. I must admit, the University of Michigan campus is nothing to write home about. However, most Big Ten campuses aren’t much to see in the dead of winter, either, so that isn’t a very good comparison point.
I grab some lunch at Wendy’s back out by the freeway, then I meet the rest of the trip at the Hampton Inn on Victors Way. It had been a 12-hour trip by coach bus from Minneapolis, and the folks aboard certainly looked the part. One friend of mine started to drink as soon as the buses had left Williams Arena 12 hours before (about the same time I left Seattle), and had not had a good time of it a few hours later. We got checked in, got our room assignments, took our crap up there, and then got back on the bus to go on a tour of Michigan’s athletic facilities.
The bus pulled up to the loading dock of Crisler Arena, and we get out and meet our tour guide, Bill. We go on a tour of the Wolverine athletic facilities, including their pool (The UMN Aquatic Center is nicer), fieldhouse (a wash), and their studying facilities. I wasn’t overly impressed by any of this until we went into Yost Ice Arena, home of Wolverine hockey. As the Barnyard student section, we have a keen appreciation for ambiance of older arenas, and what we saw at Yost definitely had that. Wolverine fans think very highly of Yost, similar to how Gopher fans revel in The Barn’s atmosphere. Everyone on the tour agreed that Yost was the coolest thing that we saw the whole time there.
Back over to Crisler Arena we went. Our tour guide explained to us that due to construction in the Big House, it was impossible for us to go in there. This was disappointing, both to us and to him. We went around Crisler Arena, and were thoroughly unimpressed by the place. The place appears to have been built in the same timeframe as the old St. Paul Civic Center and the US Bank Arena in Cincinnati, and also hasn’t been reupholstered since then. The colors of the arena are straight out of the late 60s.
This concluded our campus tour, and we retreated to the hotel. I went to the liquor store across the freeway and helped re-stock a few portable medicine cabinets, then returned to the hotel for Wendy’s supper and getting ready for the game. By the time 6:00 rolled around, we were all feeling pretty good. Jump on the buses, and they roll up into the parking lot of the high school kitty corner from the Big House. Erin goes up to the ticket office and gets our tickets while we make the cold walk across the parking lot and to the entrance of Crisler Arena.
I knew beforehand that Wolverine basketball was a distant third in importance behind football and hockey, but I had no idea just how far down the totem pole it was. By the time I got through the ticket turnstile and into the concourse on the opposite end of the arena from where the Barnyard was sitting, it was clear that we were going to have complete control of the crowd noise. In fact, I think we got some of the ushers very mad for yelling, cheering, chanting, and carrying on, and it was 15 minutes before tipoff.
We stand for “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and then it’s game time. The Barnyard is quite merciless on the few thousand that bother to show up to Crisler for this Thursday night game. In addition to your “Defense,” “Let’s go Gophers,” and other standard basketball chants, we also go after the miserable crowd with “Where’s your students?” among other things not repeatable on a family message board. At the end, some of the folks on the bus are aware of the fact that if the Gophers win, this will be win #400 for coach Tubby Smith, so as the clock ticks down, chants of “Win 400!” go up. The team and Tubby appear very grateful that we made the trek there, as they make their way up the tunnel. We for everyone to leave, then sing the Rouser while everyone is hanging around the tunnel.
Back to the hotel, where everyone got ready to go to the bar. Our bunch decided to go to the Brown Jug, and over the course of the evening, most of the people on the trip end up there. It’s a good thing that I brought a change of clothes, because Michigan’s indoor smoking ban stops at 10:00 PM, so you can smoke in the bar after that time. In this day in age, wherever you can smoke, people will. The bar quickly assumed Flying Burrito Brothers proportions (Dim lights, thick smoke, and loud, loud music). As for the atmosphere, anywhere outside Minnesota where the Minnesota block M is prominently displayed is fine by me. The patrons were surprised that there were so many Minnesota people at the bar. Once we explained to them why we were there, they were glad to drink with us. Drinkers in Ann Arbor are most cordial to Gopher fans, unlike receptions in certain other Big Ten cities. In fact, we got several drinks and shots bought for us for that exact reason. At bar close, we stumbled across the street to this New York-style pizza place, which had very good pizza for 3 AM.
Waking up the next morning, I was glad to hit the shower, and bid adieu to the Barnyard crew. The rest of the Barnyard packed up to get on the buses back to Minneapolis, while I was going to go up to East Lansing and look around the campus of Michigan State. Unfortunately, I dropped the key to my rental car somewhere in the snow around the car (it had snowed overnight), and wasted the rest of the morning, a goodly portion of the afternoon, and too much of my money getting the mess resolved. By the time I got things squared away, it was too late to go to East Lansing. So I lit out for my accommodations that evening, which was at Castaway Bay Indoor Waterpark and Resort at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio.
Around Toledo and onto the Ohio Turnpike I went. By all accounts, it was a miserable day, even more miserable than Seattle was at that time of the year. The sky was gray, the traffic was heavy, and what made it worse was that the terrain was as flat as a pancake. At least the cloud layer in Washington State is above the mountains, so there’s something to look at. Not so much across northern Ohio. Fortunately, the Ohio Turnpike operates by a Pennsylvania-model toll road system (ticket in, ticket out). I get off at SR-4 and begin making the convoluted journey into the town of Sandusky.
If there was ever a town that relied on one thing to keep it going, so does Sandusky rely on Cedar Point. During the indirect drive from the Turnpike to the Lake Erie resort district, I lost count of how many businesses (including several hotels) were closed down for the season. By the time I drove out to the Cedar Point Causeway to see the world-famous roller coaster skyline of The Point, I was convinced that by virtue of the desolation of the town, a handful of cannon could hold the town against an army, for there was little on the streets for the shots to hit.
Castaway Bay is one of few signs of life in the town on a Friday night in February. I hadn’t been in an indoor waterpark that resembled the size of this one (Sorry Wisconsin Dells), so I took my time exploring the place. The indoor waterpark was certainly big, but nothing out of line from what I was expecting. More details of it can be found on their website.
The following morning, I drove from Sandusky to the campus of Ohio State University in Columbus. Driving down US 250 between Sandusky and where it picks up I-71 (Mansfield?), I find out some of the peculiarities of Ohio. The highway grid is an interesting combination of the right angles prescribed by the North West Ordinance, but overlaid with important point-to-point highways, similar to the highway grid of Pennsylvania, except sans mountains.
I slogged my way to I-71 and roared into Columbus and the campus of The Ohio State University. I came in on the road north of The Shoe, and had to walk around to try seeing the stadium. Everything the Big House isn’t The Shoe is. My first impression of the place is “Whoa!” It presents an aura of intimidation that the Big House sorely lacks. Sadly, I was unable to get into the seating bowl to take a look around. However, I was able to peek inside the fence between the open end of the horseshoe and the south stands.
After walking across the campus to some sub shop on College Ave. (I think, the exact name escapes me), the sun finally came out for the remainder of the drive across Ohio to Cincinnati. It was an unseasonably warm day (54 degrees and sunny on February 2), but it made for a pleasant drive down I-71 into Cincinnati. The freeway is flat and boring for much of the way, but starts getting very hilly near the Kings Island amusement park. While driving past it, it is hard to ignore just how spread out the park is. It took two full minutes at 72 MPH to go the length of it. The terrain keeps getting hillier the rest of the way into downtown Cincinnati. I intentionally go past the exit I’m supposed to turn off at so I can cross the Ohio River and claim that I’ve been in Kentucky.
After this little expedition (27 down, 23 to go), I backtrack along I-71 to the exit that eventually takes me to a friend’s place that I know through the coaster circles. The reason that I’ve come to Cincinnati is that he has season basketball tickets at Xavier University, his alma mater. Seeing that there is a home game on this Saturday evening, and I was within driving distance, I contacted him to see if he could get a ticket so I could see yet another college basketball venue. I pulled into the driveway (he had a large XU flag hanging on his porch), went inside, and we discussed things for a while before heading over to the XU campus.
Xavier University is a small Jesuit college on the north side of Cincinnati that has a fairly extensive basketball history. A poster on the Gopher Hole suggested that the accolades that get heaped on Gonzaga should go XU’s way. They’ve got a couple of NIT titles, as well as a very new arena/dining hall, the Cintas Center. We got over to campus a little bit early, and he was able to show me around the relatively small campus. Before the game, we stop at the student union for a blue beer. It’s just Bud Light with a bit of food coloring in the tap, but it’s certainly interesting.
Then it’s over to the Cintas Center. The seating at Cintas is an interesting configuration. The lower bowl goes all the way around the court, but the upper deck ends at the baselines on the north end, and a large ballroom occupies the space the “upper” deck should be. The student section is in the lower bowl below the ballroom, and the area is designated by benches, instead of the chairbacks around the rest of the arena. The XU student section is a lot like the hockey student section at Mariucci Arena: unorganized, unoriginal, and full of drunk people too busy to care about the game. Too busy, except for one minute detail: what my friend David refers to as the Wheel of Death. This is essentially a large, flat pinwheel with a spiral painted on it. When the opponent is shooting free throws, the general idea is that the wheel is stood up and spun in line with the shooter’s eye and the backboard, distracting him and making him miss. This wasn’t working the time I was there.
What I liked about Cintas is that it didn’t try to be what it wasn’t. It didn’t try to overwhelm you with either numbers or blaring pyrotechnics. They knew (and let you know) that you were in the home of the Xavier Musketeers, but let it go at that. The crowd was smart, and knew when to get in with the ebb and flow of the game.
Tonight’s game was against LaSalle, and it was a game that the Muskies drew off to a hard-fought win. Another thing I liked about CIntas is the fact that they provide halftime stats to the crowd. At the end of the concourse, near the entrance to the ballroom, there is a printer that kicks out copies of the halftime stats page, available to anyone who asks.
After the end of the game, we got back in my rental, and I drove to a Skyline Chili parlor to give Cincinnati-style chili a try. For those of you who haven’t sampled it, chili done Cincinnati-style means it’s poured over a pile of spaghetti. It’s not overly spicy but it’s very tasty, and I devour it with gusto.
We go back to the friend’s house, where I use his laptop to check my email, the Gopher Hole, and check into my flight back to Seattle from Detroit at noon the following afternoon. I thank him for the use of his place to stay, the tickets, and that I’ll see him again soon. Six hours of topsy-turvy sleep go by, then a long, boring drive up I-75 back to the Detroit airport. I’m finally able to get officially-printed highway maps of Ohio and Michigan at a couple of rest areas along the way.
I return my car, and I go upstairs to see if there’s any way to update my seating assignment (Northwest’s 757s are configured such that a very tall guy like me would like an exit row if at all possible). Seeing that the flight is completely full, I print my boarding pass and head for the shortest security line I can find. This takes me to the upper departure level, where two lines are significantly shorter than the others. I soon find out why. The reason that these lines are so short is that in addition to the metal detector, these lines have what I call a “huffer.” It blasts little puffs of air around your person and analyzes the collected sample for any sort of explosive residue. I hadn’t seen anything like this before, and I didn’t think the TSA agents had either, because it took a LONG time to get through the line.
The flight back to Seattle was its usual long, boring self. It was Super Bowl Sunday, and immediately upon arrival in Seattle, I drove up to a restaurant in South Lake Union to watch it with some friends. While at this restaurant, I was wearing a Xavier sweatshirt I had picked up the previous evening. On the way to the bathroom once, a guy coming out of the john saw my sweatshirt and said “Go Flyers!” I knew from before that the Xavier Musketeers and the Dayton Flyers had been archenemies for a very long time, but that was the first time I’d ever seen it firsthand. The Giants beat the Patriots, I went over to Mass at the UDub Newman Center, and then I went home exhausted, ending the four-day odyssey known as the Super-Sized Barnyard Road Trip.
Paul
4:55 AM EST
ON THE RAMP AT DETROIT METRO-WAYNE COUNTY AIRPORT
ROMULUS, MICHIGAN
It’s been a short rest period onboard Northwest Airlines flight #208, a red-eye from Seattle to Detroit. As I gather up my stuff on this very empty 757, I take inventory of what I’ve got before I leave the plane. Rolloff? Check. Winter coat? Check. Messenger bag? Messenger bag…uh-oh….
Five hours earlier at SeaTac airport…
Bread bowls of Ivar’s clam chowder are one of the greatest things ever invented. First you have Ivar’s clam chowder, which is the best clam chowder known to man. Second, you have a bread bowl. Put ‘em together, and how much better can you get? Anyhow, I’d put my messenger bag on the chair across the table from me, and after I’d scarfed down the chowder I grabbed my coat and rolloff and head for the gate. The only problem is that I forgot to pick up my messenger bag, which means that my iPod, headphones, and a bunch of other semi-important things will be spending the weekend at SeaTac Airport, if not in someone else’s bag.
However, seeing that there wasn’t anything I could do about it until 11 AM Eastern (thanks to the time difference) I figured I better find a nice, quiet, unused gate and try to sleep for a while. Fortunately, even though Northwest has flights to just about everywhere out of DTW, several gates do go unoccupied, and I’m able to zonk out for a while, until it’s time to go get the rental car.
I get the rental car (a Mazda G6), and I decide to drive the freeway around downtown Detroit. Good grief, is that a depressing drive. I went around the waterfront past the Cobo Hall and Joe Louis Arena, and is that downtown ever dead. This is at 9:00 on a Thursday morning and NOTHING is happening.
I decide to get out of there while I still have all my limbs attached, and go back out I-94 towards Ann Arbor. By this time, the lost-and-found offices at SeaTac have opened, and I’m able to call the missing-object report in from a Denny’s on the way to Ann Arbor.
Getting off the freeway, and I drive up M-243 into the campus of the University of Michigan. The campus is fairly accessible by vehicle, and I do some scouting out of locations of potential bar visits later in the evening. I must admit, the University of Michigan campus is nothing to write home about. However, most Big Ten campuses aren’t much to see in the dead of winter, either, so that isn’t a very good comparison point.
I grab some lunch at Wendy’s back out by the freeway, then I meet the rest of the trip at the Hampton Inn on Victors Way. It had been a 12-hour trip by coach bus from Minneapolis, and the folks aboard certainly looked the part. One friend of mine started to drink as soon as the buses had left Williams Arena 12 hours before (about the same time I left Seattle), and had not had a good time of it a few hours later. We got checked in, got our room assignments, took our crap up there, and then got back on the bus to go on a tour of Michigan’s athletic facilities.
The bus pulled up to the loading dock of Crisler Arena, and we get out and meet our tour guide, Bill. We go on a tour of the Wolverine athletic facilities, including their pool (The UMN Aquatic Center is nicer), fieldhouse (a wash), and their studying facilities. I wasn’t overly impressed by any of this until we went into Yost Ice Arena, home of Wolverine hockey. As the Barnyard student section, we have a keen appreciation for ambiance of older arenas, and what we saw at Yost definitely had that. Wolverine fans think very highly of Yost, similar to how Gopher fans revel in The Barn’s atmosphere. Everyone on the tour agreed that Yost was the coolest thing that we saw the whole time there.
Back over to Crisler Arena we went. Our tour guide explained to us that due to construction in the Big House, it was impossible for us to go in there. This was disappointing, both to us and to him. We went around Crisler Arena, and were thoroughly unimpressed by the place. The place appears to have been built in the same timeframe as the old St. Paul Civic Center and the US Bank Arena in Cincinnati, and also hasn’t been reupholstered since then. The colors of the arena are straight out of the late 60s.
This concluded our campus tour, and we retreated to the hotel. I went to the liquor store across the freeway and helped re-stock a few portable medicine cabinets, then returned to the hotel for Wendy’s supper and getting ready for the game. By the time 6:00 rolled around, we were all feeling pretty good. Jump on the buses, and they roll up into the parking lot of the high school kitty corner from the Big House. Erin goes up to the ticket office and gets our tickets while we make the cold walk across the parking lot and to the entrance of Crisler Arena.
I knew beforehand that Wolverine basketball was a distant third in importance behind football and hockey, but I had no idea just how far down the totem pole it was. By the time I got through the ticket turnstile and into the concourse on the opposite end of the arena from where the Barnyard was sitting, it was clear that we were going to have complete control of the crowd noise. In fact, I think we got some of the ushers very mad for yelling, cheering, chanting, and carrying on, and it was 15 minutes before tipoff.
We stand for “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and then it’s game time. The Barnyard is quite merciless on the few thousand that bother to show up to Crisler for this Thursday night game. In addition to your “Defense,” “Let’s go Gophers,” and other standard basketball chants, we also go after the miserable crowd with “Where’s your students?” among other things not repeatable on a family message board. At the end, some of the folks on the bus are aware of the fact that if the Gophers win, this will be win #400 for coach Tubby Smith, so as the clock ticks down, chants of “Win 400!” go up. The team and Tubby appear very grateful that we made the trek there, as they make their way up the tunnel. We for everyone to leave, then sing the Rouser while everyone is hanging around the tunnel.
Back to the hotel, where everyone got ready to go to the bar. Our bunch decided to go to the Brown Jug, and over the course of the evening, most of the people on the trip end up there. It’s a good thing that I brought a change of clothes, because Michigan’s indoor smoking ban stops at 10:00 PM, so you can smoke in the bar after that time. In this day in age, wherever you can smoke, people will. The bar quickly assumed Flying Burrito Brothers proportions (Dim lights, thick smoke, and loud, loud music). As for the atmosphere, anywhere outside Minnesota where the Minnesota block M is prominently displayed is fine by me. The patrons were surprised that there were so many Minnesota people at the bar. Once we explained to them why we were there, they were glad to drink with us. Drinkers in Ann Arbor are most cordial to Gopher fans, unlike receptions in certain other Big Ten cities. In fact, we got several drinks and shots bought for us for that exact reason. At bar close, we stumbled across the street to this New York-style pizza place, which had very good pizza for 3 AM.
Waking up the next morning, I was glad to hit the shower, and bid adieu to the Barnyard crew. The rest of the Barnyard packed up to get on the buses back to Minneapolis, while I was going to go up to East Lansing and look around the campus of Michigan State. Unfortunately, I dropped the key to my rental car somewhere in the snow around the car (it had snowed overnight), and wasted the rest of the morning, a goodly portion of the afternoon, and too much of my money getting the mess resolved. By the time I got things squared away, it was too late to go to East Lansing. So I lit out for my accommodations that evening, which was at Castaway Bay Indoor Waterpark and Resort at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio.
Around Toledo and onto the Ohio Turnpike I went. By all accounts, it was a miserable day, even more miserable than Seattle was at that time of the year. The sky was gray, the traffic was heavy, and what made it worse was that the terrain was as flat as a pancake. At least the cloud layer in Washington State is above the mountains, so there’s something to look at. Not so much across northern Ohio. Fortunately, the Ohio Turnpike operates by a Pennsylvania-model toll road system (ticket in, ticket out). I get off at SR-4 and begin making the convoluted journey into the town of Sandusky.
If there was ever a town that relied on one thing to keep it going, so does Sandusky rely on Cedar Point. During the indirect drive from the Turnpike to the Lake Erie resort district, I lost count of how many businesses (including several hotels) were closed down for the season. By the time I drove out to the Cedar Point Causeway to see the world-famous roller coaster skyline of The Point, I was convinced that by virtue of the desolation of the town, a handful of cannon could hold the town against an army, for there was little on the streets for the shots to hit.
Castaway Bay is one of few signs of life in the town on a Friday night in February. I hadn’t been in an indoor waterpark that resembled the size of this one (Sorry Wisconsin Dells), so I took my time exploring the place. The indoor waterpark was certainly big, but nothing out of line from what I was expecting. More details of it can be found on their website.
The following morning, I drove from Sandusky to the campus of Ohio State University in Columbus. Driving down US 250 between Sandusky and where it picks up I-71 (Mansfield?), I find out some of the peculiarities of Ohio. The highway grid is an interesting combination of the right angles prescribed by the North West Ordinance, but overlaid with important point-to-point highways, similar to the highway grid of Pennsylvania, except sans mountains.
I slogged my way to I-71 and roared into Columbus and the campus of The Ohio State University. I came in on the road north of The Shoe, and had to walk around to try seeing the stadium. Everything the Big House isn’t The Shoe is. My first impression of the place is “Whoa!” It presents an aura of intimidation that the Big House sorely lacks. Sadly, I was unable to get into the seating bowl to take a look around. However, I was able to peek inside the fence between the open end of the horseshoe and the south stands.
After walking across the campus to some sub shop on College Ave. (I think, the exact name escapes me), the sun finally came out for the remainder of the drive across Ohio to Cincinnati. It was an unseasonably warm day (54 degrees and sunny on February 2), but it made for a pleasant drive down I-71 into Cincinnati. The freeway is flat and boring for much of the way, but starts getting very hilly near the Kings Island amusement park. While driving past it, it is hard to ignore just how spread out the park is. It took two full minutes at 72 MPH to go the length of it. The terrain keeps getting hillier the rest of the way into downtown Cincinnati. I intentionally go past the exit I’m supposed to turn off at so I can cross the Ohio River and claim that I’ve been in Kentucky.
After this little expedition (27 down, 23 to go), I backtrack along I-71 to the exit that eventually takes me to a friend’s place that I know through the coaster circles. The reason that I’ve come to Cincinnati is that he has season basketball tickets at Xavier University, his alma mater. Seeing that there is a home game on this Saturday evening, and I was within driving distance, I contacted him to see if he could get a ticket so I could see yet another college basketball venue. I pulled into the driveway (he had a large XU flag hanging on his porch), went inside, and we discussed things for a while before heading over to the XU campus.
Xavier University is a small Jesuit college on the north side of Cincinnati that has a fairly extensive basketball history. A poster on the Gopher Hole suggested that the accolades that get heaped on Gonzaga should go XU’s way. They’ve got a couple of NIT titles, as well as a very new arena/dining hall, the Cintas Center. We got over to campus a little bit early, and he was able to show me around the relatively small campus. Before the game, we stop at the student union for a blue beer. It’s just Bud Light with a bit of food coloring in the tap, but it’s certainly interesting.
Then it’s over to the Cintas Center. The seating at Cintas is an interesting configuration. The lower bowl goes all the way around the court, but the upper deck ends at the baselines on the north end, and a large ballroom occupies the space the “upper” deck should be. The student section is in the lower bowl below the ballroom, and the area is designated by benches, instead of the chairbacks around the rest of the arena. The XU student section is a lot like the hockey student section at Mariucci Arena: unorganized, unoriginal, and full of drunk people too busy to care about the game. Too busy, except for one minute detail: what my friend David refers to as the Wheel of Death. This is essentially a large, flat pinwheel with a spiral painted on it. When the opponent is shooting free throws, the general idea is that the wheel is stood up and spun in line with the shooter’s eye and the backboard, distracting him and making him miss. This wasn’t working the time I was there.
What I liked about Cintas is that it didn’t try to be what it wasn’t. It didn’t try to overwhelm you with either numbers or blaring pyrotechnics. They knew (and let you know) that you were in the home of the Xavier Musketeers, but let it go at that. The crowd was smart, and knew when to get in with the ebb and flow of the game.
Tonight’s game was against LaSalle, and it was a game that the Muskies drew off to a hard-fought win. Another thing I liked about CIntas is the fact that they provide halftime stats to the crowd. At the end of the concourse, near the entrance to the ballroom, there is a printer that kicks out copies of the halftime stats page, available to anyone who asks.
After the end of the game, we got back in my rental, and I drove to a Skyline Chili parlor to give Cincinnati-style chili a try. For those of you who haven’t sampled it, chili done Cincinnati-style means it’s poured over a pile of spaghetti. It’s not overly spicy but it’s very tasty, and I devour it with gusto.
We go back to the friend’s house, where I use his laptop to check my email, the Gopher Hole, and check into my flight back to Seattle from Detroit at noon the following afternoon. I thank him for the use of his place to stay, the tickets, and that I’ll see him again soon. Six hours of topsy-turvy sleep go by, then a long, boring drive up I-75 back to the Detroit airport. I’m finally able to get officially-printed highway maps of Ohio and Michigan at a couple of rest areas along the way.
I return my car, and I go upstairs to see if there’s any way to update my seating assignment (Northwest’s 757s are configured such that a very tall guy like me would like an exit row if at all possible). Seeing that the flight is completely full, I print my boarding pass and head for the shortest security line I can find. This takes me to the upper departure level, where two lines are significantly shorter than the others. I soon find out why. The reason that these lines are so short is that in addition to the metal detector, these lines have what I call a “huffer.” It blasts little puffs of air around your person and analyzes the collected sample for any sort of explosive residue. I hadn’t seen anything like this before, and I didn’t think the TSA agents had either, because it took a LONG time to get through the line.
The flight back to Seattle was its usual long, boring self. It was Super Bowl Sunday, and immediately upon arrival in Seattle, I drove up to a restaurant in South Lake Union to watch it with some friends. While at this restaurant, I was wearing a Xavier sweatshirt I had picked up the previous evening. On the way to the bathroom once, a guy coming out of the john saw my sweatshirt and said “Go Flyers!” I knew from before that the Xavier Musketeers and the Dayton Flyers had been archenemies for a very long time, but that was the first time I’d ever seen it firsthand. The Giants beat the Patriots, I went over to Mass at the UDub Newman Center, and then I went home exhausted, ending the four-day odyssey known as the Super-Sized Barnyard Road Trip.
Paul
Monday, July 14, 2008
TR: Minnesota @ Iowa, 11/9/07
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2007
KINNICK STADIUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
IOWA CITY, IOWA
This past weekend, I traveled east to a football game I’d been looking forward to for a long, long time: my third trip to Kinnick Stadium for the Floyd of Rosedale game between the Minnesota Gophers and the Iowa Hawkeyes.
My plans for staying on Friday night in Iowa City went by the boards on Wednesday night. I called my good friend Gatorama (from the CollegeFootballNews.com message boards), who I knew would be in Madison this weekend for Wisconsin-Michigan, and asked if I could come up there and crash in his hotel room on Friday night. He agreed, and so I roared up the Illinois Tollway to Madison after I finally got out of O’Hare.
After jawing with Gator for a while out at the hotel, we headed into campus. While driving around, I got a call from a friend of mine who runs track for the Badgers, and we met her at a Noodles west of campus. It had been some time since I’d seen her, so it was nice catching up on things. Also, one of 847badgerfan’s friends came out and met us at this particular Noodles.
Lindsey went back to her place, and we went back to the hotel, where by this time 847 had gotten in from Chicago, so we jawboned with him for some time while he got some of his breakfast ready for tomorrow morning at the tailgate. We then went over to this supper club in Sun Prairie, where the special was your typical Friday fish fry. Perch was the fish of choice, and when it was brought forth, the slices were thin, over-breaded, and over-cooked. The Spotted Cow was the sole redeeming feature of the dinner.
After dinner, the Rollicking SUV O’Fun headed into campus. I was dropped off at Brothers to meet another friend who goes to grad school at UW. Unlike the last time I was in the Madison Brothers, the bar wasn’t jammed to the gunnels, so one could actually move around. I hung out with my friend for a bit, then trekked across campus to the Big 10, which is where 847, Gator, et al. went after dropping me off. They had fallen in with a group of Michigan fans, and they were having a good time discussing Gator’s exploits, and the prospects for the next day’s game. We stayed here until we called it quits around 11:30.
3 AM wake-up calls on consecutive mornings are hard on a man. They’re even harder when the second one occurs in a time zone that is two hours earlier than what your body has been. Still, with apologies to a schooner of coffee, I made it into Iowa City as the sun rose over a gorgeous Saturday morning in Big Ten country. I ended up parking in a grassy field at the end of Olive Court, and walked into the campus and the stadium.
Iowa City is similar to Madison in that there is no one spot where all the tailgating takes place. Every nook and cranny is filled with tailgaters, including my group of guys I was tailgating with. Call me a bit strange, but that kind of cold (sharp, brisk, dry cold) actually felt pretty good compared with the wet, damp crud that often settles into Seattle. Plus the sun was out, which you all know if a rarity in a Pacific Northwest winter.
After drinking, carousing, and carrying on, it was time to go into Kinnick Stadium. Another friend of mine from Davenport met me on the way into the place, and we went up to our seats. However, I had to use the bathroom first. BIG mistake. The men’s room under Section 109 was, without question, the WORST line I have ever seen at a men’s bathroom. I didn’t do the end-around, which meant it was over 10 agonizing minutes by the time I finally got up to one of the individual urinals. It was bad.
The game has been discussed ad nauseam. When I first bought the tickets, all I asked for was a competitive game for coming all the way from Seattle. Watching college football on a beautiful November afternoon, when your Gophers play the most competitive game they’ve played in some time in a road rivalry game, it does not get much better than that.
After the game was over, my friend from Davenport took me out to this restaurant on Mormon Trek Road (or whatever it’s called) just south of I-80, the name of which I cannot remember to save myself. Either way, the food was tasty and reasonably-priced. During the dinner, I could also feel the coffee schooner wearing off rather hurriedly, which meant that by the time the check came, I had the 40-foot stare of an exhausted guy.
The friend drove me back to Olive Court, and while walking to my car, I was summoned over by an Iowa fan parked in a yard, who noticed all my Gopher gear. He asked if I had a good time in IC, and I assured him that I had indeed. He said that he was from a small town about 50 miles southwest of Lake Okoboji, and that he liked seeing visiting fans make their way to Kinnick. He (and his companions with him) was genuinely impressed when I told him that I had come all the way from Seattle just for the game, and that I was already planning on Madison in 2008. Both of us agreed that with college football, it is the pre-and-postgame experience that matters, and we had a very nice chat, ending with him wishing me safe travels back to Washington. I have had experiences like that on all three of my visits to Iowa City.
I drove out to my hotel on the Coralville Strip, and after napping, showing, and changing clothes, Saturday night was your typical fun-filled, alcohol-fueled evening on the downtown Ped Mall.
After Mass at the UI Newman Center the following morning, I went over to the Hamburg Inn on Lynn Street for breakfast, to make another notch in my belt of Legendary Big Ten Breakfast Establishments. The Hamburg Inn seems to be the epicenter of presidential visits to Iowa City, with the Coffee Bean Caucus under the front counter, all the bumper stickers from the major-party candidates, and more pictures of past Presidents than can be hung on the wall. Oh, and the food isn’t bad either. Pancakes almost as thick as Mickey’s in Madison, and hash browns just as good as the ones at Al’s. Plus it’s CHEAP. What cost me $5 and change would have run me twice that out here in Seattle. Hamburg Inn is definitely a winner.
Iowa and North Dakota may be a couple of the worst states to drive across, but Illinois has to be right there. On the East-West Tollway back to O’Hare on Sunday afternoon/evening, I was cooking along at 75-80 MPH all the way between Davenport and the outskirts of Chicago, and it seemed as if I was going NOWHERE in a hurry. Plus if new tollways ever get built, they better go with the Pennsylvania model (ticket in, ticket out) instead of the Chicago model (stop every 20 miles and toss a fistful of coins into the hopper). Much more efficient that way.
Do new cars right off the line take a while to get up to their optimum fuel mileage? I rented a Pontiac Grand Am, and it had 225 miles on it when I left the Alamo rental facility at O’Hare at noon Friday. In the three segments of the trip (O’Hare-Madison, Madison-Iowa City, and IC-O’Hare), the car got 19, 20, and 23 MPG respectively. If I’d have known that, I’d have kept the rental as an econo-box, instead of giving a car its “shakedown cruise.”
Overall, this was another fun trip to Iowa City, and with this my live college football viewing has ended for the season. I’ve seen more different teams in person this year (Gophers, Iowa, Washington, Boise State, Ohio State, USC, Oregon, Texas, and Nebraska) than I’ve seen in any other year before this, and I’m very grateful for the ability to be able to do this. Good night, and Go Gophers!
KINNICK STADIUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
IOWA CITY, IOWA
This past weekend, I traveled east to a football game I’d been looking forward to for a long, long time: my third trip to Kinnick Stadium for the Floyd of Rosedale game between the Minnesota Gophers and the Iowa Hawkeyes.
My plans for staying on Friday night in Iowa City went by the boards on Wednesday night. I called my good friend Gatorama (from the CollegeFootballNews.com message boards), who I knew would be in Madison this weekend for Wisconsin-Michigan, and asked if I could come up there and crash in his hotel room on Friday night. He agreed, and so I roared up the Illinois Tollway to Madison after I finally got out of O’Hare.
After jawing with Gator for a while out at the hotel, we headed into campus. While driving around, I got a call from a friend of mine who runs track for the Badgers, and we met her at a Noodles west of campus. It had been some time since I’d seen her, so it was nice catching up on things. Also, one of 847badgerfan’s friends came out and met us at this particular Noodles.
Lindsey went back to her place, and we went back to the hotel, where by this time 847 had gotten in from Chicago, so we jawboned with him for some time while he got some of his breakfast ready for tomorrow morning at the tailgate. We then went over to this supper club in Sun Prairie, where the special was your typical Friday fish fry. Perch was the fish of choice, and when it was brought forth, the slices were thin, over-breaded, and over-cooked. The Spotted Cow was the sole redeeming feature of the dinner.
After dinner, the Rollicking SUV O’Fun headed into campus. I was dropped off at Brothers to meet another friend who goes to grad school at UW. Unlike the last time I was in the Madison Brothers, the bar wasn’t jammed to the gunnels, so one could actually move around. I hung out with my friend for a bit, then trekked across campus to the Big 10, which is where 847, Gator, et al. went after dropping me off. They had fallen in with a group of Michigan fans, and they were having a good time discussing Gator’s exploits, and the prospects for the next day’s game. We stayed here until we called it quits around 11:30.
3 AM wake-up calls on consecutive mornings are hard on a man. They’re even harder when the second one occurs in a time zone that is two hours earlier than what your body has been. Still, with apologies to a schooner of coffee, I made it into Iowa City as the sun rose over a gorgeous Saturday morning in Big Ten country. I ended up parking in a grassy field at the end of Olive Court, and walked into the campus and the stadium.
Iowa City is similar to Madison in that there is no one spot where all the tailgating takes place. Every nook and cranny is filled with tailgaters, including my group of guys I was tailgating with. Call me a bit strange, but that kind of cold (sharp, brisk, dry cold) actually felt pretty good compared with the wet, damp crud that often settles into Seattle. Plus the sun was out, which you all know if a rarity in a Pacific Northwest winter.
After drinking, carousing, and carrying on, it was time to go into Kinnick Stadium. Another friend of mine from Davenport met me on the way into the place, and we went up to our seats. However, I had to use the bathroom first. BIG mistake. The men’s room under Section 109 was, without question, the WORST line I have ever seen at a men’s bathroom. I didn’t do the end-around, which meant it was over 10 agonizing minutes by the time I finally got up to one of the individual urinals. It was bad.
The game has been discussed ad nauseam. When I first bought the tickets, all I asked for was a competitive game for coming all the way from Seattle. Watching college football on a beautiful November afternoon, when your Gophers play the most competitive game they’ve played in some time in a road rivalry game, it does not get much better than that.
After the game was over, my friend from Davenport took me out to this restaurant on Mormon Trek Road (or whatever it’s called) just south of I-80, the name of which I cannot remember to save myself. Either way, the food was tasty and reasonably-priced. During the dinner, I could also feel the coffee schooner wearing off rather hurriedly, which meant that by the time the check came, I had the 40-foot stare of an exhausted guy.
The friend drove me back to Olive Court, and while walking to my car, I was summoned over by an Iowa fan parked in a yard, who noticed all my Gopher gear. He asked if I had a good time in IC, and I assured him that I had indeed. He said that he was from a small town about 50 miles southwest of Lake Okoboji, and that he liked seeing visiting fans make their way to Kinnick. He (and his companions with him) was genuinely impressed when I told him that I had come all the way from Seattle just for the game, and that I was already planning on Madison in 2008. Both of us agreed that with college football, it is the pre-and-postgame experience that matters, and we had a very nice chat, ending with him wishing me safe travels back to Washington. I have had experiences like that on all three of my visits to Iowa City.
I drove out to my hotel on the Coralville Strip, and after napping, showing, and changing clothes, Saturday night was your typical fun-filled, alcohol-fueled evening on the downtown Ped Mall.
After Mass at the UI Newman Center the following morning, I went over to the Hamburg Inn on Lynn Street for breakfast, to make another notch in my belt of Legendary Big Ten Breakfast Establishments. The Hamburg Inn seems to be the epicenter of presidential visits to Iowa City, with the Coffee Bean Caucus under the front counter, all the bumper stickers from the major-party candidates, and more pictures of past Presidents than can be hung on the wall. Oh, and the food isn’t bad either. Pancakes almost as thick as Mickey’s in Madison, and hash browns just as good as the ones at Al’s. Plus it’s CHEAP. What cost me $5 and change would have run me twice that out here in Seattle. Hamburg Inn is definitely a winner.
Iowa and North Dakota may be a couple of the worst states to drive across, but Illinois has to be right there. On the East-West Tollway back to O’Hare on Sunday afternoon/evening, I was cooking along at 75-80 MPH all the way between Davenport and the outskirts of Chicago, and it seemed as if I was going NOWHERE in a hurry. Plus if new tollways ever get built, they better go with the Pennsylvania model (ticket in, ticket out) instead of the Chicago model (stop every 20 miles and toss a fistful of coins into the hopper). Much more efficient that way.
Do new cars right off the line take a while to get up to their optimum fuel mileage? I rented a Pontiac Grand Am, and it had 225 miles on it when I left the Alamo rental facility at O’Hare at noon Friday. In the three segments of the trip (O’Hare-Madison, Madison-Iowa City, and IC-O’Hare), the car got 19, 20, and 23 MPG respectively. If I’d have known that, I’d have kept the rental as an econo-box, instead of giving a car its “shakedown cruise.”
Overall, this was another fun trip to Iowa City, and with this my live college football viewing has ended for the season. I’ve seen more different teams in person this year (Gophers, Iowa, Washington, Boise State, Ohio State, USC, Oregon, Texas, and Nebraska) than I’ve seen in any other year before this, and I’m very grateful for the ability to be able to do this. Good night, and Go Gophers!
TR: CFN Board Meeting Austin 2007; 10/25/07-10/28/07
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2007
SEVERAL VENUES AROUND THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
AUSTIN, TEXAS
In my 23 years on this earth, I’ve done my share of gutsy, unusual things. Forked out good money to see your team play even though you know they’re going to get butchered? Check. Skydived? Check. Moved halfway across the country by myself? Check. Ride a roller coaster 17 straight times without leaving the loading platform? Check. But flown halfway across the country to meet some folks who post on the same message board as I do? Haven’t done that yet. Therefore, as my Southwest Airlines place roared off the deck at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, I really wasn’t sure what the hell I was getting myself into.
I actually flew to Austin on Thursday night, and was met at the airport by Erin (UTerin03). I had my first taste of authentic Austin food at the Magnolia Café on South Congress on Thursday night. I could definitely tell that everything I ate had been prepared fresh, with quality makings. All of Erin’s friends bailed out on her for going to the bar that night, which was for the better, as I was pretty wiped out after a long day at the office and 5 hours of flights.
Friday morning I finally met razorchique, KSULady, and Gatorama in the hotel lobby, and I rode with them down to Ruby’s. I took a liking to the place immediately. It is your typical Texas hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint, and I’m partial to places like that. I also had my first taste of the national beer of Texas, Lone Star, and it does a good job of washing down some of that FANTASTIC brisket.
Roby’s is where most of the Board Meeting met up for the first time. The four of us ran into MikeDeTiger, SunDevilFroggy, 847badgerfan, hooky, BurntEyes, and several others that I can't remember off hand.
After Ruby’s, a few of us went over to Cain and Abel’s to have a drink and chill out for a while. I must say that Cain and Abel’s is my kind of bar. Good atmosphere, $2 pints of Dos Equis, and a jukebox where “I’ll Just Sit Here and Drink” by Merle Haggard was the song that stuck in my craw.
BurntEyes and badgerfan needed to get some smokes, plus I wanted to walk through the campus, so BurntEyes led badgerfan, and myself (correct me if there were more of us) through the campus. It’s a very nice campus, and definitely has a big-league feel to it (compared with my foray into Eugene). Badgerfan said that it definitely felt like a Big Ten campus, but with a Southwestern flavor to it.
En route to the tailgate site, we stopped at the souvenir shop at Darrel K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium. It’s your typical team store, but trying to find the bathroom was a confusing maze. I picked up a t-shirt to verify that I have indeed been to Texas.
The laws of Texas are significantly different than anywhere else I’ve been to when it comes to drinking in public. Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Washington lawmen would give you a $300 open-container ticket for drinking on the sidewalk (and be harda$$es in the process). Seattle cops would give you an additional ticket for not putting the drink in a plastic cup. Texas lawmen will let you drink on the sidewalk, but not on the state parking lots until they open for tailgaters to set up at 6 PM Friday night. This peculiar setup was demonstrated to us when we got to utee’s tailgate site about 5:00 Friday afternoon. Several of the tailgating setups were parked along the sidewalk waiting for the 6:00 bell, and they were already having a good ‘ol time, throwing washers and drinking beer. We helped utee get his tents set up, then went to Badgerfan’s hotel for him to change, then went to dinner.
Dinner was up at Trudy’s, just down the block from Rudy’s. Erin had raved so much about their Mexican martinis, I had no choice but to try one. Very tasty. I also had a mixed grill plate, and that was fantastic. If anyone complains about not eating or drinking well this weekend, it’s their own damn fault.
The party then shifted to Cheers on 6th Street. The waitress with the shot tray made out like gangbusters. When she came upstairs where the group was, someone suggested buying the whole tray. My hat was passed around, and there was a fair bit more collected than what she was willing to sell us the shots for. This happened twice over the course of the evening. I also had a nice talk with the barman about how the RRS is conducted up in Dallas.
Shortly before midnight, the folks who were riding in Gator’s car back to the hotel decided to call it a night, in preparation for the next day’s long haul.
Wow. A page and a half, and this is only Friday. Hard to tell how long this thing is gonna go for the Saturday recap.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2007
DARRELL K. ROYAL TEXAS MEMORIAL STADIUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
AUSTIN, TEXAS
Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, albeit a bit chilly, on the plains of central Texas. It took a little while for me to fully come around, after short rest the past two nights and lots of cold beer the previous day.
When I saw Gator outside my hotel room shortly after 9:00 Saturday morning, he reported that I looked awful. I didn’t disagree with him, but assured him that once I got some food and some beer in me, I’d look and feel better. The whole bunch of us that were riding in Gator’s car piled in, and off to downtown we went. We ended up parking in a lot on 15th and Congress for the staggering cost of $5. Who said game-day parking had to be expensive?
After we piled out of the car (a la the clowns piling out of the Volkswagen), we made up an impressive menagerie of different school colors. Shirts, jackets, and hats from Florida, Minnesota, Kansas State, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona State, and Auburn made up our little group as we walked the three blocks or so over to utee’s tailgate. Several times we were asked if we were lost, and once we explained what our motive for being in Austin was, they thought it was very cool. In fact, we were offered beers at several points during the walk, but we declined.
I mentioned earlier that we helped utee set his tents up on Friday evening. By the time we got over there about 9:30 Saturday morning, he had a very impressive spread out there. Beer kegs on ice, plus more cans in an iced tub in the event we drank the kegs out, plus lots of other beverages. A dish set in a bucket of sand to pick up ESPN and all the early games of the day. Lots of chairs, and the breakfast tacos out and ready to eat. An impressive setup indeed. Utee’s organization donates all proceeds from the tailgate to noteworthy Austin-area charities, and we were all glad to contribute. I also thought utee’s Texas hockey sweater (for those of you who aren’t too familiar with hockey, it’s frequently called a sweater) was one of the more unique things I’ve seen.
The rest of the group trickled in from their hotel rooms over the next hour or so. By 10:00, everyone was there and wearing their respective gear. I believe the final tally of schools represented at the tailgate was 12 (Host school Texas, Florida, Minnesota, Kansas State, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona State, Auburn, Georgia, LSU, Nebraska, and Wisconsin). Also, there were folks there in gear of Penn State, Illinois, and Oregon, but I don’t know how they fit into this whole situation. It was an impressive blend of colors, and the only regret of the weekend was that we didn’t get a group shot of all of us in our gear.
Around 10:30, utee and the other Longhorns in the group led us on a walkaround of the tailgating going on in that part of campus. I’ve never seen so many meat smokers in one place in my entire life. As with before, our group got a lot of jokes, jests, and stares as we maneuvered our way through south Austin. We walked past the State Museum of Texas, which looks to be the kind of place I could lose myself in for a full day or two. While we were told that the number of elaborate setups is down from many big games (Ohio State, A&M), there were still a lot of big rigs there.
We got back in time to see the early games get under way. Badgerfan and Gator sat down to take in Wisconsin-Indiana on the big TV, while Texas Tech-Colorado occupied the other one. By now, the main food had been set out, and we set out to devouring the catered Tex-Mex, and washing it down with all that cold beer.
I had to find an ATM, and I was told there was one down at the Scholzgarten, a few blocks down San Jacinto from the tailgate. I stepped in the door and into a sea of red. Turns out I had wandered into the semi-official Big Red Bar in Austin. I later learned that after the Big 12 was formed, the first time that Nebraska came to Austin, Texas fans were surprised that the visiting team had even found a bar to congregate at, much less show up in the sheer numbers that Cornhusker fans tend to.
At this point, it was getting really crowded around the tailgate. We stood around enjoying the tailgating scene, discussing football in general, and finding tickets for the members of our party who wanted them and didn’t already have them.
A little after 1:30, our group (Erin, Mike, TigerKing, SDF, Razor, and myself) headed into the stadium. I figured our seats were going to be a ways up in the upper deck, but after huffing, puffing, and damn near blowing the house down, it occurred to me that Row 54 was not only high up in the stadium, it was the VERY TOP ROW. The view of the field was good, though. It was just like watching a game on TV from Ohio State.
The University of Texas Marching Band, the Show Band of the Southwest, has a very nice pregame show. However, am I the only one who found it more than a little awkward to announce the emergency evacuation procedures AFTER the band has taken the field and began their pregame show? Also, “The Eyes of Texas” does a good job of pulling double duty. When played at a fast pace, it’s a good fight song. When played at a slow, deliberate pace, it makes for a fine school alma mater. The tune for “Eyes” also happens to be the same as that of “I’ve Been Working On The Railroad.”
The game has been discussed ad nauseam, and the second quarter was so exciting that I apparently fell asleep while leaning against the top wall. Erin brought binoculars, and they were used frequently throughout the game. SDF also used his cell phone to find the answer to this past week’s Resident Genius question.
For as many people as DKR seats, I didn’t find that it was much more than average. I realize that this may have been a function of being at the very top of the stadium, but the place wasn’t very loud either. Husky Stadium in Seattle is still the loudest college stadium I’ve been to, and also the most unique/scenic. After the end of the game, it took quite a while for us to get down to the concourse of the upper deck. We waited for the women to use the facilities, and took some pictures as the sun set on a gorgeous day for football in Texas.
On the way back to the tailgate, we stopped at one of the T-shirt wagons so that TigreRex could get a souvenir of his visit to Austin. While we were waiting, a man who was so drunk he could hardly stand accosted MDT and started talking smack about LSU and Texas. After a few minutes, his accomplices were able to drag him away from our group, and we all completely cracked up and laughed all the way back.
We thanked utee for letting us crash his tailgate party, found our way to Gator’s car, and after driving around what seemed like half of Austin, ended up at Sports Bar. It was crowded, and it took a while to get our food, but the turkey melt sure did hit the spot, and the onion rings were fabulous. Mr. and Mrs. Badgerfan both left during this time, and it was too bad we didn’t see them again before I left for Seattle the next morning. The rest of us were perfectly content to sit at our tables/booth, drink beer, and watch football.
Strangely enough, for a bar in Texas on Saturday during college football season, the sound from Game 3 of the World Series was being put on the house sound system, instead of any of the many, many football games on the different TVs. At the back of the bar, there were a big crowd of Red Sox fans cheering on the other big projection in the back of the bar. There were also delegations from both Ohio State and Penn State in the bar, watching the OSU-PSU game from Happy Valley on one of the big projection monitors. Since it was Halloween weekend, one guy had dressed up like Coach Tressel, sweater vest and all, and I had to get a picture with him (it’s in my Photobucket album).
Let no one accuse KSULady of not being a passionate Wildcats fan. You could see her blood pressure going up during the third quarter of the KU-A&M game when the Wildcats were taking it to the Aggies, and most other folks in the bar cheering for the Jayhawks out of their hatred of A&M.
We sat there and drank until halftime of Cal-Arizona State, at which point we headed back to our hotel for a nightcap. Mex had a hard time getting more beer to take back to Razor and KSULady’s hotel room, but get it he did. SDF was able to watch the end of the beatdown his Sun Devils put on Cal, and we sat, drank, talked, laughed, and basically agreed that we were going to SEC country for next year’s Board Meeting. I also suggested not bringing the Board Meeting to Seattle unless we had a booooooooat to stern-gate from near Husky Stadium.
Fate is strange. 48 hours earlier, I hadn’t met any of these crazy folks before in my life. Hell, I’d never been within 500 miles of any of them in my life. I’d only read what scraps they’d posted on an Internet message board. But saying goodbye to everyone that night was like bidding adieu to dear friends that you’ve known forever. Because we are all friends. We have GOT to get together sometime in the spring for a half-year meeting or something. I had way too much fun to wait a year for it.
It’s hard to top Washington State for natural beauty. The approach into Seattle took us south of Stampede Pass before turning over Issaquah and Lake Sammamish. Since it was a clear day, you could see well into the North Cascades National Park to the plane’s right, and the impressive profiles of Mounts Adams, St. Helens, and Rainier to the left. Absolutely beautiful mountain scenery. After leaving the airport, I realized that the fall colors are still in peak around Puget Sound, which meant that the 405 from SeaTac airport around to Eastgate was awash in natural colors. Seattle is badly underrated when it comes to fall colors.
So there it is. My bloated epic of a two-day visit to central Texas. Any questions, comments, or complaints? Send ‘em my way. Thanks to everyone for making it such a great weekend.
SEVERAL VENUES AROUND THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
AUSTIN, TEXAS
In my 23 years on this earth, I’ve done my share of gutsy, unusual things. Forked out good money to see your team play even though you know they’re going to get butchered? Check. Skydived? Check. Moved halfway across the country by myself? Check. Ride a roller coaster 17 straight times without leaving the loading platform? Check. But flown halfway across the country to meet some folks who post on the same message board as I do? Haven’t done that yet. Therefore, as my Southwest Airlines place roared off the deck at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, I really wasn’t sure what the hell I was getting myself into.
I actually flew to Austin on Thursday night, and was met at the airport by Erin (UTerin03). I had my first taste of authentic Austin food at the Magnolia Café on South Congress on Thursday night. I could definitely tell that everything I ate had been prepared fresh, with quality makings. All of Erin’s friends bailed out on her for going to the bar that night, which was for the better, as I was pretty wiped out after a long day at the office and 5 hours of flights.
Friday morning I finally met razorchique, KSULady, and Gatorama in the hotel lobby, and I rode with them down to Ruby’s. I took a liking to the place immediately. It is your typical Texas hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint, and I’m partial to places like that. I also had my first taste of the national beer of Texas, Lone Star, and it does a good job of washing down some of that FANTASTIC brisket.
Roby’s is where most of the Board Meeting met up for the first time. The four of us ran into MikeDeTiger, SunDevilFroggy, 847badgerfan, hooky, BurntEyes, and several others that I can't remember off hand.
After Ruby’s, a few of us went over to Cain and Abel’s to have a drink and chill out for a while. I must say that Cain and Abel’s is my kind of bar. Good atmosphere, $2 pints of Dos Equis, and a jukebox where “I’ll Just Sit Here and Drink” by Merle Haggard was the song that stuck in my craw.
BurntEyes and badgerfan needed to get some smokes, plus I wanted to walk through the campus, so BurntEyes led badgerfan, and myself (correct me if there were more of us) through the campus. It’s a very nice campus, and definitely has a big-league feel to it (compared with my foray into Eugene). Badgerfan said that it definitely felt like a Big Ten campus, but with a Southwestern flavor to it.
En route to the tailgate site, we stopped at the souvenir shop at Darrel K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium. It’s your typical team store, but trying to find the bathroom was a confusing maze. I picked up a t-shirt to verify that I have indeed been to Texas.
The laws of Texas are significantly different than anywhere else I’ve been to when it comes to drinking in public. Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Washington lawmen would give you a $300 open-container ticket for drinking on the sidewalk (and be harda$$es in the process). Seattle cops would give you an additional ticket for not putting the drink in a plastic cup. Texas lawmen will let you drink on the sidewalk, but not on the state parking lots until they open for tailgaters to set up at 6 PM Friday night. This peculiar setup was demonstrated to us when we got to utee’s tailgate site about 5:00 Friday afternoon. Several of the tailgating setups were parked along the sidewalk waiting for the 6:00 bell, and they were already having a good ‘ol time, throwing washers and drinking beer. We helped utee get his tents set up, then went to Badgerfan’s hotel for him to change, then went to dinner.
Dinner was up at Trudy’s, just down the block from Rudy’s. Erin had raved so much about their Mexican martinis, I had no choice but to try one. Very tasty. I also had a mixed grill plate, and that was fantastic. If anyone complains about not eating or drinking well this weekend, it’s their own damn fault.
The party then shifted to Cheers on 6th Street. The waitress with the shot tray made out like gangbusters. When she came upstairs where the group was, someone suggested buying the whole tray. My hat was passed around, and there was a fair bit more collected than what she was willing to sell us the shots for. This happened twice over the course of the evening. I also had a nice talk with the barman about how the RRS is conducted up in Dallas.
Shortly before midnight, the folks who were riding in Gator’s car back to the hotel decided to call it a night, in preparation for the next day’s long haul.
Wow. A page and a half, and this is only Friday. Hard to tell how long this thing is gonna go for the Saturday recap.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2007
DARRELL K. ROYAL TEXAS MEMORIAL STADIUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
AUSTIN, TEXAS
Saturday morning dawned bright and clear, albeit a bit chilly, on the plains of central Texas. It took a little while for me to fully come around, after short rest the past two nights and lots of cold beer the previous day.
When I saw Gator outside my hotel room shortly after 9:00 Saturday morning, he reported that I looked awful. I didn’t disagree with him, but assured him that once I got some food and some beer in me, I’d look and feel better. The whole bunch of us that were riding in Gator’s car piled in, and off to downtown we went. We ended up parking in a lot on 15th and Congress for the staggering cost of $5. Who said game-day parking had to be expensive?
After we piled out of the car (a la the clowns piling out of the Volkswagen), we made up an impressive menagerie of different school colors. Shirts, jackets, and hats from Florida, Minnesota, Kansas State, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona State, and Auburn made up our little group as we walked the three blocks or so over to utee’s tailgate. Several times we were asked if we were lost, and once we explained what our motive for being in Austin was, they thought it was very cool. In fact, we were offered beers at several points during the walk, but we declined.
I mentioned earlier that we helped utee set his tents up on Friday evening. By the time we got over there about 9:30 Saturday morning, he had a very impressive spread out there. Beer kegs on ice, plus more cans in an iced tub in the event we drank the kegs out, plus lots of other beverages. A dish set in a bucket of sand to pick up ESPN and all the early games of the day. Lots of chairs, and the breakfast tacos out and ready to eat. An impressive setup indeed. Utee’s organization donates all proceeds from the tailgate to noteworthy Austin-area charities, and we were all glad to contribute. I also thought utee’s Texas hockey sweater (for those of you who aren’t too familiar with hockey, it’s frequently called a sweater) was one of the more unique things I’ve seen.
The rest of the group trickled in from their hotel rooms over the next hour or so. By 10:00, everyone was there and wearing their respective gear. I believe the final tally of schools represented at the tailgate was 12 (Host school Texas, Florida, Minnesota, Kansas State, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona State, Auburn, Georgia, LSU, Nebraska, and Wisconsin). Also, there were folks there in gear of Penn State, Illinois, and Oregon, but I don’t know how they fit into this whole situation. It was an impressive blend of colors, and the only regret of the weekend was that we didn’t get a group shot of all of us in our gear.
Around 10:30, utee and the other Longhorns in the group led us on a walkaround of the tailgating going on in that part of campus. I’ve never seen so many meat smokers in one place in my entire life. As with before, our group got a lot of jokes, jests, and stares as we maneuvered our way through south Austin. We walked past the State Museum of Texas, which looks to be the kind of place I could lose myself in for a full day or two. While we were told that the number of elaborate setups is down from many big games (Ohio State, A&M), there were still a lot of big rigs there.
We got back in time to see the early games get under way. Badgerfan and Gator sat down to take in Wisconsin-Indiana on the big TV, while Texas Tech-Colorado occupied the other one. By now, the main food had been set out, and we set out to devouring the catered Tex-Mex, and washing it down with all that cold beer.
I had to find an ATM, and I was told there was one down at the Scholzgarten, a few blocks down San Jacinto from the tailgate. I stepped in the door and into a sea of red. Turns out I had wandered into the semi-official Big Red Bar in Austin. I later learned that after the Big 12 was formed, the first time that Nebraska came to Austin, Texas fans were surprised that the visiting team had even found a bar to congregate at, much less show up in the sheer numbers that Cornhusker fans tend to.
At this point, it was getting really crowded around the tailgate. We stood around enjoying the tailgating scene, discussing football in general, and finding tickets for the members of our party who wanted them and didn’t already have them.
A little after 1:30, our group (Erin, Mike, TigerKing, SDF, Razor, and myself) headed into the stadium. I figured our seats were going to be a ways up in the upper deck, but after huffing, puffing, and damn near blowing the house down, it occurred to me that Row 54 was not only high up in the stadium, it was the VERY TOP ROW. The view of the field was good, though. It was just like watching a game on TV from Ohio State.
The University of Texas Marching Band, the Show Band of the Southwest, has a very nice pregame show. However, am I the only one who found it more than a little awkward to announce the emergency evacuation procedures AFTER the band has taken the field and began their pregame show? Also, “The Eyes of Texas” does a good job of pulling double duty. When played at a fast pace, it’s a good fight song. When played at a slow, deliberate pace, it makes for a fine school alma mater. The tune for “Eyes” also happens to be the same as that of “I’ve Been Working On The Railroad.”
The game has been discussed ad nauseam, and the second quarter was so exciting that I apparently fell asleep while leaning against the top wall. Erin brought binoculars, and they were used frequently throughout the game. SDF also used his cell phone to find the answer to this past week’s Resident Genius question.
For as many people as DKR seats, I didn’t find that it was much more than average. I realize that this may have been a function of being at the very top of the stadium, but the place wasn’t very loud either. Husky Stadium in Seattle is still the loudest college stadium I’ve been to, and also the most unique/scenic. After the end of the game, it took quite a while for us to get down to the concourse of the upper deck. We waited for the women to use the facilities, and took some pictures as the sun set on a gorgeous day for football in Texas.
On the way back to the tailgate, we stopped at one of the T-shirt wagons so that TigreRex could get a souvenir of his visit to Austin. While we were waiting, a man who was so drunk he could hardly stand accosted MDT and started talking smack about LSU and Texas. After a few minutes, his accomplices were able to drag him away from our group, and we all completely cracked up and laughed all the way back.
We thanked utee for letting us crash his tailgate party, found our way to Gator’s car, and after driving around what seemed like half of Austin, ended up at Sports Bar. It was crowded, and it took a while to get our food, but the turkey melt sure did hit the spot, and the onion rings were fabulous. Mr. and Mrs. Badgerfan both left during this time, and it was too bad we didn’t see them again before I left for Seattle the next morning. The rest of us were perfectly content to sit at our tables/booth, drink beer, and watch football.
Strangely enough, for a bar in Texas on Saturday during college football season, the sound from Game 3 of the World Series was being put on the house sound system, instead of any of the many, many football games on the different TVs. At the back of the bar, there were a big crowd of Red Sox fans cheering on the other big projection in the back of the bar. There were also delegations from both Ohio State and Penn State in the bar, watching the OSU-PSU game from Happy Valley on one of the big projection monitors. Since it was Halloween weekend, one guy had dressed up like Coach Tressel, sweater vest and all, and I had to get a picture with him (it’s in my Photobucket album).
Let no one accuse KSULady of not being a passionate Wildcats fan. You could see her blood pressure going up during the third quarter of the KU-A&M game when the Wildcats were taking it to the Aggies, and most other folks in the bar cheering for the Jayhawks out of their hatred of A&M.
We sat there and drank until halftime of Cal-Arizona State, at which point we headed back to our hotel for a nightcap. Mex had a hard time getting more beer to take back to Razor and KSULady’s hotel room, but get it he did. SDF was able to watch the end of the beatdown his Sun Devils put on Cal, and we sat, drank, talked, laughed, and basically agreed that we were going to SEC country for next year’s Board Meeting. I also suggested not bringing the Board Meeting to Seattle unless we had a booooooooat to stern-gate from near Husky Stadium.
Fate is strange. 48 hours earlier, I hadn’t met any of these crazy folks before in my life. Hell, I’d never been within 500 miles of any of them in my life. I’d only read what scraps they’d posted on an Internet message board. But saying goodbye to everyone that night was like bidding adieu to dear friends that you’ve known forever. Because we are all friends. We have GOT to get together sometime in the spring for a half-year meeting or something. I had way too much fun to wait a year for it.
It’s hard to top Washington State for natural beauty. The approach into Seattle took us south of Stampede Pass before turning over Issaquah and Lake Sammamish. Since it was a clear day, you could see well into the North Cascades National Park to the plane’s right, and the impressive profiles of Mounts Adams, St. Helens, and Rainier to the left. Absolutely beautiful mountain scenery. After leaving the airport, I realized that the fall colors are still in peak around Puget Sound, which meant that the 405 from SeaTac airport around to Eastgate was awash in natural colors. Seattle is badly underrated when it comes to fall colors.
So there it is. My bloated epic of a two-day visit to central Texas. Any questions, comments, or complaints? Send ‘em my way. Thanks to everyone for making it such a great weekend.
TR: Ducks-Dawgs, 10-20-07
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2007
HUSKY STADIUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
Yesterday, I attended my fourth Washington Husky game of the season, a 55-31 defeat at the hands of the Oregon Ducks.
· The often-ugly rivalry between Oregon and Washington began in the fall of 1948. That year, both Cal and Oregon had gone unbeaten in Pacific Coast Conference play, and it was decided that the presidents of the universities would vote on who would go to the Rose Bowl. It was suspected that the vote would be split between the California schools and the Northwest schools. As it turned out, UW voted for Cal instead of Oregon, sending the Bears to Pasadena, where they would lose 20-10 to Northwestern. Ten years later, the PCC dissolved in a slush fund scandal, and the big schools of the West Coast (Cal, Stanford, USC, UCLA, and UDub) voted the smaller Northwest schools out of their new AAWU, but reneged during the ‘60s and became the Pac-8, and later the Pac-10.
· This political underhandedness has translated to the gridiron over the years. Washington leads the series 58-37-5, and dancing on the home team’s midfield logo (or worse) was often commonplace. There was a period between 1924 and 1967 where UDub refused to go to Eugene, playing at Portland instead. In 1973, Oregon smoked the Dawgs 58-0 at Eugene. This was followed in 1974 by the Ducks getting roasted 66-0 in Seattle. Due to scheduling quirks, only one of the last 6 meetings has been in Seattle, and three straight have been in Eugene…until yesterday.
· Weather was typical Seattle football weather: rain and cold wind off Lake Washington. Husky Stadium is a hulking behemoth on the shore of the lake, but it’s showing it’s age (1920) in some elements, and there is a lot of debate as to what to do with it, either renovate it, wipe it out and rebuild it, or (GASP) move to Seahawk Stadium downtown. That’s enough material for its own column, and I will treat it as such.
· Tailgating around the place is not unlike most college tailgates. It’s very picturesque to see al the boats out on Union Bay that have anchored there and are drinking and carousing before the game, particularly on a day when the weather is clear (i.e. against Boise State back in September). Several waterfront restaurants, the most notable of which is Ivar’s Salmon House, run special gameday charters to Husky Stadium that include pre-sailing buffets. On land, the E-1 and E-12 lots, immediately to the north and south of the athletic facilities, is where most of the tailgating takes place. Seattle has an ordinance against any open containers, so everything must be poured into plastic cups prior to consumption.
· I went into Husky Stadium anticipating coming back to the Gopher Hole and posting something to the effect of “UO’s uniforms are even uglier in the flesh than they are on TV.” Instead, Oregon actually came out with respectable-looking all-white uniforms.
· The same cannot be said for the Oregon Marching Band. The OMB has, without question, the ugliest marching band uniforms of any BCS-conference marching band I’ve seen. In fact, what they wore to Husky Stadium yesterday was so ugly that Google couldn’t even find an image of it. The Oregon Marching Band’s website hasn’t been updated since at least 2006. The band did a short pre-game on-field show, and the crowd booed vehemently the whole time. As for their marching style, they behave a lot more like a drum and bugle corps than a traditional marching band, with fast formation changes, no high-stepping, and a battery of orchestral percussion (xylophones, timpanis, two large hanging bass drums, etc.) set up on the bench area of the field during their halftime show.
· The Husky Marching Band is a traditional marching band that can certainly be mentioned in the same breath as some of their Big Ten brethern as far as quality goes. They employ the typical chair-step marching style, and do a fairly good pre-game show (not nearly as long or as elaborate as the Gopher band, but they do a good job).
· I’m already a page into this and I’m just getting to the game. Oregon won the toss, received, and promptly drew off to a 14-0 lead after their first two possessions. This had all the feeling of a Gopher game in Madison the last decade, except for then Jake Locker unloaded an 82-yard bomb that landed straight into one of UW’s receivers to wake the crowd back up and make it 14-7.
· Dennis Dixon put on one of the most impressive quarterback showings I’ve ever seen in person. Many times over the course of the game he faked handoffs to his backs, and everyone in the stadium bit on it, including cameramen and play-by-play guys. Except Dixon still had the ball and was scrambling 20 yards to the outside.
· Jake Locker, the freshman phenom QB for the Huskies, was no slouch himself. He had been working on his passing touch in the three weeks since I last saw him play against USC, and he wasn’t airmailing passes (like he did twice with potential TDs against the Trojans). Both Boise State and Ohio State fans were heard to remark that they were glad they were playing Locker now, instead of next year or year after, because Locker is scary good. If Tyrone Willingham can get some talent around Locker, the Dawgs will be back in the Pac-10 race before too long.
· The third quarter was a wild shootout if there ever was one. However, by the time time had wound down to around 7 minutes left in the game, Washington had just score to draw within 38-31. At that point, the Ducks had over 600 yards of total offense, and the Dawg defensive backfield looked physically and mentally fried. During the TV timeout after the TD, I had a hunch the Huskies would try a dribble-kick on the ensuing kickoff to try and keep the ball out of Duck hands. Sure enough, they did. One of the Duck up-backs made a spectacular lunge to tip the ball to one of his teammates, and that was the only thing that kept the Dawgs from recovering. This call was NOT popular where I was sitting, although had I been Ty Willingham, I’d have sent in the exact same play.
· For all of its deficiencies, Husky Stadium is LOUD. My seats have all been under the upper deck overhang on the south side, and holy cow did that place ever get loud! Granted, it was louder against USC, but Husky Stadium was howlin’, no pun intended. Camp Randall and Kinnick couldn’t untie Husky Stadium’s boots.
· King County Metro Transit has a substantial network of special game-day services to many of their park-and-rides in the Puget Sound region. Since I live close to one of them (Eastgate Park and Ride), and I’m not tailgating, it makes sense to partake of this service. After the end of the game, Montlake Boulevard is closed to through traffic while a whole fleet of KC Metro buses take folks back to their park-and-rides.
So that’s how my visit to Husky Stadium went. Next weekend I’ll be in Austin, Texas, two weeks after that in Iowa City, and (maybe) the Badger game the week after. Here are some additional links for some of the organizations referenced in this write-up:
Husky Marching Band: http://www.huskymarchingband.com/
Oregon Marching Band: http://omb.uoregon.edu/
Thread at CFN that discusses the animosity between Oregon and Washington:
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=451#s=451&f=2366&t=652154
HUSKY STADIUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
Yesterday, I attended my fourth Washington Husky game of the season, a 55-31 defeat at the hands of the Oregon Ducks.
· The often-ugly rivalry between Oregon and Washington began in the fall of 1948. That year, both Cal and Oregon had gone unbeaten in Pacific Coast Conference play, and it was decided that the presidents of the universities would vote on who would go to the Rose Bowl. It was suspected that the vote would be split between the California schools and the Northwest schools. As it turned out, UW voted for Cal instead of Oregon, sending the Bears to Pasadena, where they would lose 20-10 to Northwestern. Ten years later, the PCC dissolved in a slush fund scandal, and the big schools of the West Coast (Cal, Stanford, USC, UCLA, and UDub) voted the smaller Northwest schools out of their new AAWU, but reneged during the ‘60s and became the Pac-8, and later the Pac-10.
· This political underhandedness has translated to the gridiron over the years. Washington leads the series 58-37-5, and dancing on the home team’s midfield logo (or worse) was often commonplace. There was a period between 1924 and 1967 where UDub refused to go to Eugene, playing at Portland instead. In 1973, Oregon smoked the Dawgs 58-0 at Eugene. This was followed in 1974 by the Ducks getting roasted 66-0 in Seattle. Due to scheduling quirks, only one of the last 6 meetings has been in Seattle, and three straight have been in Eugene…until yesterday.
· Weather was typical Seattle football weather: rain and cold wind off Lake Washington. Husky Stadium is a hulking behemoth on the shore of the lake, but it’s showing it’s age (1920) in some elements, and there is a lot of debate as to what to do with it, either renovate it, wipe it out and rebuild it, or (GASP) move to Seahawk Stadium downtown. That’s enough material for its own column, and I will treat it as such.
· Tailgating around the place is not unlike most college tailgates. It’s very picturesque to see al the boats out on Union Bay that have anchored there and are drinking and carousing before the game, particularly on a day when the weather is clear (i.e. against Boise State back in September). Several waterfront restaurants, the most notable of which is Ivar’s Salmon House, run special gameday charters to Husky Stadium that include pre-sailing buffets. On land, the E-1 and E-12 lots, immediately to the north and south of the athletic facilities, is where most of the tailgating takes place. Seattle has an ordinance against any open containers, so everything must be poured into plastic cups prior to consumption.
· I went into Husky Stadium anticipating coming back to the Gopher Hole and posting something to the effect of “UO’s uniforms are even uglier in the flesh than they are on TV.” Instead, Oregon actually came out with respectable-looking all-white uniforms.
· The same cannot be said for the Oregon Marching Band. The OMB has, without question, the ugliest marching band uniforms of any BCS-conference marching band I’ve seen. In fact, what they wore to Husky Stadium yesterday was so ugly that Google couldn’t even find an image of it. The Oregon Marching Band’s website hasn’t been updated since at least 2006. The band did a short pre-game on-field show, and the crowd booed vehemently the whole time. As for their marching style, they behave a lot more like a drum and bugle corps than a traditional marching band, with fast formation changes, no high-stepping, and a battery of orchestral percussion (xylophones, timpanis, two large hanging bass drums, etc.) set up on the bench area of the field during their halftime show.
· The Husky Marching Band is a traditional marching band that can certainly be mentioned in the same breath as some of their Big Ten brethern as far as quality goes. They employ the typical chair-step marching style, and do a fairly good pre-game show (not nearly as long or as elaborate as the Gopher band, but they do a good job).
· I’m already a page into this and I’m just getting to the game. Oregon won the toss, received, and promptly drew off to a 14-0 lead after their first two possessions. This had all the feeling of a Gopher game in Madison the last decade, except for then Jake Locker unloaded an 82-yard bomb that landed straight into one of UW’s receivers to wake the crowd back up and make it 14-7.
· Dennis Dixon put on one of the most impressive quarterback showings I’ve ever seen in person. Many times over the course of the game he faked handoffs to his backs, and everyone in the stadium bit on it, including cameramen and play-by-play guys. Except Dixon still had the ball and was scrambling 20 yards to the outside.
· Jake Locker, the freshman phenom QB for the Huskies, was no slouch himself. He had been working on his passing touch in the three weeks since I last saw him play against USC, and he wasn’t airmailing passes (like he did twice with potential TDs against the Trojans). Both Boise State and Ohio State fans were heard to remark that they were glad they were playing Locker now, instead of next year or year after, because Locker is scary good. If Tyrone Willingham can get some talent around Locker, the Dawgs will be back in the Pac-10 race before too long.
· The third quarter was a wild shootout if there ever was one. However, by the time time had wound down to around 7 minutes left in the game, Washington had just score to draw within 38-31. At that point, the Ducks had over 600 yards of total offense, and the Dawg defensive backfield looked physically and mentally fried. During the TV timeout after the TD, I had a hunch the Huskies would try a dribble-kick on the ensuing kickoff to try and keep the ball out of Duck hands. Sure enough, they did. One of the Duck up-backs made a spectacular lunge to tip the ball to one of his teammates, and that was the only thing that kept the Dawgs from recovering. This call was NOT popular where I was sitting, although had I been Ty Willingham, I’d have sent in the exact same play.
· For all of its deficiencies, Husky Stadium is LOUD. My seats have all been under the upper deck overhang on the south side, and holy cow did that place ever get loud! Granted, it was louder against USC, but Husky Stadium was howlin’, no pun intended. Camp Randall and Kinnick couldn’t untie Husky Stadium’s boots.
· King County Metro Transit has a substantial network of special game-day services to many of their park-and-rides in the Puget Sound region. Since I live close to one of them (Eastgate Park and Ride), and I’m not tailgating, it makes sense to partake of this service. After the end of the game, Montlake Boulevard is closed to through traffic while a whole fleet of KC Metro buses take folks back to their park-and-rides.
So that’s how my visit to Husky Stadium went. Next weekend I’ll be in Austin, Texas, two weeks after that in Iowa City, and (maybe) the Badger game the week after. Here are some additional links for some of the organizations referenced in this write-up:
Husky Marching Band: http://www.huskymarchingband.com/
Oregon Marching Band: http://omb.uoregon.edu/
Thread at CFN that discusses the animosity between Oregon and Washington:
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=451#s=451&f=2366&t=652154
TR: UO, OSU, Autzen, and Reser, 8/4/07
One of the things that I wanted to do once I got settled down here in Seattle was to go check out all of the big-league campuses of the Northwest. Pullmangopher is working on Wazzu, and my tickets for four Husky games are in the mail, and yesterday I got in the car and drove down the I-5 into Oregon, to Eugene and Corvallis and the campuses of the University of Oregon and Oregon State University.
Once you get out of the Portland metro area, I-5 driving through the Willamette Valley is a lot like driving across the Palouse in Eastern Washington on I-90. It is flat, the bridge overpasses are prime Highway Patrol radar spots, and the concept of going faster than 60 mph in the left lane is unheard of.
Of all the BCS-conference universities that I’ve been to the campuses of (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Northwestern, Colorado, USC, UCLA, and Washington), they all have the feel (setting, architecture, etc.) of being at a big-time university. After walking around UO for a bit, I got the feel of being at an overgrown community college campus. There just wasn’t the feel to it. No grandiose architecture, no big open assembly spaces, and no charm. The majority of the place looked like it had been thrown up in the immediate aftermath of World War II. I also didn’t like how the campus was integrated into the rest of Eugene. It seems as if the campus was scratched together on the cheapest hunk of land the Board of Regents could find, and then the town just built it’s way out to campus.
Mac Court was one of the few exceptions to this trend. The Art Deco exterior was one of the few scraps of charm in the place. Unfortunately, all the doors were locked, so I can’t report on how the playing surface is.
Hayward Field, the legendary track and field stadium and collegiate stomping grounds of Steve Prefontaine, was being torn up and re-built in preparation for the 2008 US Olympic Trials.
The dirtiest secret that nobody in the Pac-10 wants you to know is that the legendary Autzen Stadium isn’t on campus. The Willamette River and a large park separate the campus from the stadium. Prefontaine’s legacy still looms large over Eugene, 30 years after his death. The woodchip running trails are all dedicated to his memory, and several of the plaques in the park keep mentioning him as an inspiration.
Despite it’s location, Autzen Stadium a.k.a. The House That Phil Knight Built, is everything that is advertised. A gate was open, and I was able to go down onto the field and take a look around. This place is everything that the Big House, Camp Randall, and LA Coliseum are not. Autzen does not try to overwhelm you with sheer numbers. Rather, it’s a small place with the seating going straight up. It actually felt a lot like Kinnick Stadium, except smaller, steeper, and more claustrophobic. I can see why visiting teams have so many problems up there. When the crowd gets going, that bandbox would be hell on earth.
After this, I drove over to the UO Bookstore, and while I waited for AAA to break the keys out of my car, I partook in a Mount Saint Helens pizza at Pegasus Pizza (14th Ave and Alder St.). I’m partial towards pizza with lots and lots of meat on it, and St. Helens failed to disappoint. I think I’m still full from eating all that pizza.
I then made the 45-minute drive up Highway 99W to Corvallis and Oregon State. Going from Eugene to Corvallis would be akin to the U of M bring in Alexandria, and then the St. Paul campus being called Minnesota State and being set in Long Prairie. Highway 99W was, for much of the way, a two lane road through the rural Willamette Valley.
When I arrived at the campus of Oregon State University, there were a lot of cars parked around Reser Stadium and the Gill Coliseum. It soon became clear why. OSU was having an open scrimmage/practice, similar to what the Gophers were doing up at St. John’s, so I didn’t need to sneak around to check out the interior of the stadium.
Prior to the most recent renovations, which took place after the Beavers wiped out Notre Dame in the 2000 Fiesta Bowl, Reser was the poster child for “overgrown high school college football stadium.” Fortunately, the renovations, which redid the far side of the field (behind the visitors bench), remedied that problem. Despite being the smallest football stadium in the Pac-10, it works very nicely for what OSU wants.
I also thought that OSU had much more of a college feel than their brethren in Eugene did. I also kept in mind to expect something more along the lines of the St. Paul campus of the U of M, and I thought the Corvallis campus was very nice.
I could not say the same for the town of Corvallis. The town looked like one of those that needed SOMETHING to be there in the absolute worst possible way. Thankfully for them, the university is an enormous revenue driver, and the businesses I saw in town were clinging hard to the student dollar.
One thing that I’ve noticed in all of the 3 Northwest schools I’ve visited so far is that there aren’t many college bars to be found. Maybe I’m not looking in the right spot, but considering the size of football crowds on Eugene and Corvallis on game days, I’m surprised that there aren’t more bars to be seen. I’d love to be corrected by this by some of the Duck and Beav posters here. Where do you drink (in legal establishments) in either town?
Overall, I enjoyed the day trip down to OSU and UO. I will definitely have to get down to the two places for a game sometime this year.
Once you get out of the Portland metro area, I-5 driving through the Willamette Valley is a lot like driving across the Palouse in Eastern Washington on I-90. It is flat, the bridge overpasses are prime Highway Patrol radar spots, and the concept of going faster than 60 mph in the left lane is unheard of.
Of all the BCS-conference universities that I’ve been to the campuses of (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Northwestern, Colorado, USC, UCLA, and Washington), they all have the feel (setting, architecture, etc.) of being at a big-time university. After walking around UO for a bit, I got the feel of being at an overgrown community college campus. There just wasn’t the feel to it. No grandiose architecture, no big open assembly spaces, and no charm. The majority of the place looked like it had been thrown up in the immediate aftermath of World War II. I also didn’t like how the campus was integrated into the rest of Eugene. It seems as if the campus was scratched together on the cheapest hunk of land the Board of Regents could find, and then the town just built it’s way out to campus.
Mac Court was one of the few exceptions to this trend. The Art Deco exterior was one of the few scraps of charm in the place. Unfortunately, all the doors were locked, so I can’t report on how the playing surface is.
Hayward Field, the legendary track and field stadium and collegiate stomping grounds of Steve Prefontaine, was being torn up and re-built in preparation for the 2008 US Olympic Trials.
The dirtiest secret that nobody in the Pac-10 wants you to know is that the legendary Autzen Stadium isn’t on campus. The Willamette River and a large park separate the campus from the stadium. Prefontaine’s legacy still looms large over Eugene, 30 years after his death. The woodchip running trails are all dedicated to his memory, and several of the plaques in the park keep mentioning him as an inspiration.
Despite it’s location, Autzen Stadium a.k.a. The House That Phil Knight Built, is everything that is advertised. A gate was open, and I was able to go down onto the field and take a look around. This place is everything that the Big House, Camp Randall, and LA Coliseum are not. Autzen does not try to overwhelm you with sheer numbers. Rather, it’s a small place with the seating going straight up. It actually felt a lot like Kinnick Stadium, except smaller, steeper, and more claustrophobic. I can see why visiting teams have so many problems up there. When the crowd gets going, that bandbox would be hell on earth.
After this, I drove over to the UO Bookstore, and while I waited for AAA to break the keys out of my car, I partook in a Mount Saint Helens pizza at Pegasus Pizza (14th Ave and Alder St.). I’m partial towards pizza with lots and lots of meat on it, and St. Helens failed to disappoint. I think I’m still full from eating all that pizza.
I then made the 45-minute drive up Highway 99W to Corvallis and Oregon State. Going from Eugene to Corvallis would be akin to the U of M bring in Alexandria, and then the St. Paul campus being called Minnesota State and being set in Long Prairie. Highway 99W was, for much of the way, a two lane road through the rural Willamette Valley.
When I arrived at the campus of Oregon State University, there were a lot of cars parked around Reser Stadium and the Gill Coliseum. It soon became clear why. OSU was having an open scrimmage/practice, similar to what the Gophers were doing up at St. John’s, so I didn’t need to sneak around to check out the interior of the stadium.
Prior to the most recent renovations, which took place after the Beavers wiped out Notre Dame in the 2000 Fiesta Bowl, Reser was the poster child for “overgrown high school college football stadium.” Fortunately, the renovations, which redid the far side of the field (behind the visitors bench), remedied that problem. Despite being the smallest football stadium in the Pac-10, it works very nicely for what OSU wants.
I also thought that OSU had much more of a college feel than their brethren in Eugene did. I also kept in mind to expect something more along the lines of the St. Paul campus of the U of M, and I thought the Corvallis campus was very nice.
I could not say the same for the town of Corvallis. The town looked like one of those that needed SOMETHING to be there in the absolute worst possible way. Thankfully for them, the university is an enormous revenue driver, and the businesses I saw in town were clinging hard to the student dollar.
One thing that I’ve noticed in all of the 3 Northwest schools I’ve visited so far is that there aren’t many college bars to be found. Maybe I’m not looking in the right spot, but considering the size of football crowds on Eugene and Corvallis on game days, I’m surprised that there aren’t more bars to be seen. I’d love to be corrected by this by some of the Duck and Beav posters here. Where do you drink (in legal establishments) in either town?
Overall, I enjoyed the day trip down to OSU and UO. I will definitely have to get down to the two places for a game sometime this year.
TR: Six Flags Great America, 6/30/08
FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 2006
SIX FLAGS GREAT AMERICA
GURNEE, ILLINOIS
Last week I made my annual visit to the Wisconsin Dells, and when I was there, somehow the seed got planted on pushing on another few hours to Six Flags Great America. I spent the next week trying to contact friends who live in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, to no avail. So I bit the bullet and got the cheapest hotel on Expedia within driving distance of SFGAm, which was the Microtel Inn in Racine, Wisconsin. Racine is about 35 minutes north of Gurnee.
I took off at lunchtime on Thursday from my normal job at MnDOT, and after goofing around a bit, headed east on I-94. I have a newfound respect for U of Minnesota students who come here from the east coast of Wisconsin, because the drive was a pain in the butt. However, making the Ho-Chunk Nation pay for some of your expenses en route doesn’t hurt. I get to Racine intact, but exhausted, and don’t stay up very long.
Friday morning, after jamming myself full of IHOP pancakes, I took the free highway down to SFGAm. I paid the $15 (gulp) to the troll at the toll plaza, and parked front and center, which was considerably closer to the front gate than the $20 preferred parking lot. I got there about 9:10, and by 9:30, the area between the ticket windows and metal detectors was filled with people. Being used to the size of Valleyfair, where a crowd like this at T-minus 30 minutes usually meant a very crowded park, I thought that was going to happen here. The metal detectors opened up at 9:40, and let the crowd fill in the front plaza. At 9:50, the pre-open show started with a perfect way to open the long 4th of July weekend, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” A family from Sedalia, Missouri had been taken up to the upper deck of the carousel to be the official “first ride of the day. This took place to much fanfare, and promptly at 10 AM CDT, the rope dropped, and the crowd took off.
Having read the SFGAm tip thread, I took off for Superman: Ultimate Flight (coaster credit #44), as well as half the crowd in the front plaza. We arrived at the entrance to S:UF, and stopped. And waited. The line kept getting longer and longer, and by the time the queue opened, 20 minutes later, the crowd was all the way back to the carousel. Since I was close enough to the front of the line, I decided to go to the front row, since there was just about no one else in the front row line.
When I got to the front of line, three trains later, I emptied my pockets to the cubbyholes, and sat in the very comfortable seats, but then the seats turned forwards. This was my first flyer, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from the restraints. They were very unusual in that your butt is completely out of the chair during most of the ride. The flying sensation is awesome, and then you hit the pretzel. Holy crap, was that fun. After that, the ride just fizzles out. After we got back, the line was already back into the queue mazes near the front. When I was waiting impatiently outside the line at the open, my logic was either wait 20 minutes now or wait for 2 hours later.
Keeping in with the tradition of hitting the low-capacity stuff first, I headed over to Vertical Velocity, but along the way I got my credit on Rajun Cajun (#45). Standard Reverchon spinning mouse, as in it spins like a crazy dude. Then over to V2 (#46). Same ride as Steel Venom here at VF, but with a slightly different belt configuration. I was enlisted as a partner for a group of three where one rider didn’t want to be flying solo. V2 seemed to have a little stronger kick of air than Venom did in Row 4.
Next on the circuit was Iron Wolf (#47), a primitive B&M standup. This ‘ol boy was no Riddler. It has not aged well. Back on Revolution, I was tall enough to sit over the top of the OTSRs. On Iron Wolf, I had the exact opposite problem. I was tall enough to get my ears boxed out. Also, the trains were not exactly aesthetically pleasing. One and done.
Since I had seen Déjà Vu (#48) running, I figured I better get that credit before it goes down mechanical. The station for this looks like the starting gate at your friendly neighborhood horse racing track. The operations were such that the line was long, but they were doing a good job of cranking people through the ride. I had no problems with height (I’m close to the 76” listed maximum height). These Deja Vus get kind of a bum rap as far as the ride goes. It’s a fun ride, I had no headbanging, and it was doing a good job of chewing through a line.
After the Vu, I headed over to the Great Southwest for some B&M goodness, Raging Bull (#49). The line was back to where the queue goes down the steps. It looked like it was going to be a long wait, but boy was I wrong. The line was one of the fastest moving ones I’ve ever seen, and I was through the ride in less than half an hour. As for the ride itself, wow! Lots of kick and floater airtime, smooth as glass, and a great crew! If this isn’t a Top 10 steel, it’s a rotten shame.
I’ve cleaned up the steel credits, so it’s time to get the woodies. Since Viper (#50) was close by, I headed there. The line looked very long, though. But I was proved wrong again. This was another fast-moving line. I sat in the very back, and the ride was nothing too spectacular.
Next came the long, long walk back to American Eagle. This is the one of the longest queues I have ever seen. It’s a long hike out to where the line splits for the Red and Blue trains. LONG hike. I started on the Blue side (#51), and got a ride a lot like Viper. Kinda smooth, fast, but not much in the way of either floater air or kicks of air. Same with the Red side (#52). However, contrary to reports seen here on TPR and elsewhere, my second ride on the Red train actually ran racing against the Blue train, and it wasn’t until this happened that I noticed the trim on the Red side going into the helix. Either way, either side of Eagle wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t SO DAMN FAR TO GET BACK TO THE LOADING PLATFORM!
It’s a hot day, and I’m thinking about going over to SFGAm’s new Hurricane Harbor waterpark. But first, I decide to go over to the original Batman: The Ride (#53). I notice that unlike the queue out at SFMM, which is themed like a disaster area, the theme for the SFGAm queue is a construction site by Gotham Public Works. The line had some great techno music in the queue, until the CD ran out. Next CD up: the batman soundtrack with “Kiss from a Rose” by Seal on it. It was a bit unusual hearing “Kiss from a Rose” in the queue line for a major roller coaster. But the ride was just as I expected it to be: fast, forceful, and fun. Rode in Row 2 first, then row 8. Great ride.
After this, I decide to get Demon (#54) out of the way before heading to the car to change equipment. Semi-standard Arrow looper, except in the very front, where for some reason, the nose cone has been closed off part of the way. There was still plenty of room for my legs, though. I liked the lights in the tunnel after the second vertical loop, but otherwise, nothing too spectacular.
The crowds up to this point hadn’t been too bad, and I soon found out why. I then went to the car and grabbed my trunks to head to Hurricane Harbor, the waterpark. I got there, and holy cats! The place is a nuthouse! I change, and go over to the waterslide tower with the two body slides, two raft bowls, and two other raft slides. I first go up the body slide staircase, and experience the second-longest wait of the day. There seemed to be some confusion on trying to get people to both slides. I got back down to the bottom, and I grab a hold of one of the double tubes, and I head up the stairs. The line on this side of the tower is almost as long as the body slide line, but faster moving. While in line, I somehow get to talking to the foursome in front of me. We have one of those fun but brief waiting-in-line conversations, and they split up to go down the bowls.
I got through the bowl, and as I scrambled out of the pool, dragging the twin tube along with me, here come two of the foursome over to the tube pile. They ask me if I want to go on some rides with them, and since I’m there myself, I gladly take up their offer. We introduce ourselves, and we get to talking. They’re from Battle Creek, Michigan, they had some campground/hotel problems last night, and they get to make the 4-hour drive back to Battle Creek tonight after leaving SFGAm. We decide to ride the big tube slide, and of the two on the tower, we go for the purple one, the one with the long airtime run. It’s a great time talking with these folks on the way up. We have to split into twos to ride the slide. Me and Tyler, the other guy in our group of five, opt to go last. We come out of the tunnel absolutely flying, and we get some MONSTER air. So much air that had we all gone in one tube, as had been originally suggested, we would have likely been scraped up somewhere around the Wisconsin border. The lifeguards get SOAKED, and we all collapse in hysterical laughter. We got so much air that Tyler hurt his shoulder on impact.
After we change, we split up. I have to go out to my car to get some of my stuff (camera, phone, wallet), so we exchange phone numbers so we can meet back up after I get back in the park. After making the swap, I call Tyler’s phone about a dozen times, to no avail. By this time, the sun is going down, and I get some inspiration on what to shoot for video and pictures. One of the songs that just came on the park’s background sound is “Shadow Dancing” by Andy Gibb. I started shooting lots of sundown footage with this inspiration. After circling the park getting lots of footage, I run into Tyler and company by accident. They are getting tired, and are ready to head back to Michigan. It was very nice meeting you all. If you are reading this TR, message me.
Anyway, after bidding the Michigan Four adieu, I shoot footage until my camera battery dies, and then I start taking night rides. Viper really came alive as the sun went down. I rode in row 6, and it went from a “meh” ride in the back row to a “Wow!” ride in row 6. Had it not been so damn far back to Eagle, I’d have gone back there to partake in some more wooden madness. I went on two more rides on Raging Bull (rows 8 then 9), with the ride getting better and better.
At this point, it’s 9 PM. Apparently there are going to be fireworks and a show near the one train station at 9, so I wander over to see what it’s all about. The show is unwatchable, so I start positioning myself for a fast run over to Superman after the end of the fireworks, thinking that people are going to start pouring out of the gate after the end of the fireworks, and will draw people out of the park. The fireworks were decent enough, and as soon as the last shot is fired, I walk very quickly over to the Superman queue. The line has indeed shrank (it’s been back in the queue mazes all day) to about half the distance to the station, but it still takes half an hour to get up to the platform.
When I get up to the station, I go to Row 7 of the train. Lo and behold, I line up along side the same three people I’d ridden in the front row with way back at the open. We make lots of comments about how the day is best book ended by rides on Superman. The flying sensation is still great in row 7, but going through the pretzel I thought I was going to black out. Force, force, and did I mention force? A great final ride of the day before I decide to quit it.
I get back to my car, then I start making my way back to the Microtel in Racine. That open-faced turkey sandwich at the Perkins at Kenosha, WI never tasted so good. The remainder of the trip featured stops at the Wisconsin State Fair Park/Milwaukee Mile in West Allis, the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and Lake Zumbrota in rural Wabasha County, Minnesota. All in all, a fine trip to celebrate America’s independence.
THE END
SIX FLAGS GREAT AMERICA
GURNEE, ILLINOIS
Last week I made my annual visit to the Wisconsin Dells, and when I was there, somehow the seed got planted on pushing on another few hours to Six Flags Great America. I spent the next week trying to contact friends who live in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, to no avail. So I bit the bullet and got the cheapest hotel on Expedia within driving distance of SFGAm, which was the Microtel Inn in Racine, Wisconsin. Racine is about 35 minutes north of Gurnee.
I took off at lunchtime on Thursday from my normal job at MnDOT, and after goofing around a bit, headed east on I-94. I have a newfound respect for U of Minnesota students who come here from the east coast of Wisconsin, because the drive was a pain in the butt. However, making the Ho-Chunk Nation pay for some of your expenses en route doesn’t hurt. I get to Racine intact, but exhausted, and don’t stay up very long.
Friday morning, after jamming myself full of IHOP pancakes, I took the free highway down to SFGAm. I paid the $15 (gulp) to the troll at the toll plaza, and parked front and center, which was considerably closer to the front gate than the $20 preferred parking lot. I got there about 9:10, and by 9:30, the area between the ticket windows and metal detectors was filled with people. Being used to the size of Valleyfair, where a crowd like this at T-minus 30 minutes usually meant a very crowded park, I thought that was going to happen here. The metal detectors opened up at 9:40, and let the crowd fill in the front plaza. At 9:50, the pre-open show started with a perfect way to open the long 4th of July weekend, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” A family from Sedalia, Missouri had been taken up to the upper deck of the carousel to be the official “first ride of the day. This took place to much fanfare, and promptly at 10 AM CDT, the rope dropped, and the crowd took off.
Having read the SFGAm tip thread, I took off for Superman: Ultimate Flight (coaster credit #44), as well as half the crowd in the front plaza. We arrived at the entrance to S:UF, and stopped. And waited. The line kept getting longer and longer, and by the time the queue opened, 20 minutes later, the crowd was all the way back to the carousel. Since I was close enough to the front of the line, I decided to go to the front row, since there was just about no one else in the front row line.
When I got to the front of line, three trains later, I emptied my pockets to the cubbyholes, and sat in the very comfortable seats, but then the seats turned forwards. This was my first flyer, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from the restraints. They were very unusual in that your butt is completely out of the chair during most of the ride. The flying sensation is awesome, and then you hit the pretzel. Holy crap, was that fun. After that, the ride just fizzles out. After we got back, the line was already back into the queue mazes near the front. When I was waiting impatiently outside the line at the open, my logic was either wait 20 minutes now or wait for 2 hours later.
Keeping in with the tradition of hitting the low-capacity stuff first, I headed over to Vertical Velocity, but along the way I got my credit on Rajun Cajun (#45). Standard Reverchon spinning mouse, as in it spins like a crazy dude. Then over to V2 (#46). Same ride as Steel Venom here at VF, but with a slightly different belt configuration. I was enlisted as a partner for a group of three where one rider didn’t want to be flying solo. V2 seemed to have a little stronger kick of air than Venom did in Row 4.
Next on the circuit was Iron Wolf (#47), a primitive B&M standup. This ‘ol boy was no Riddler. It has not aged well. Back on Revolution, I was tall enough to sit over the top of the OTSRs. On Iron Wolf, I had the exact opposite problem. I was tall enough to get my ears boxed out. Also, the trains were not exactly aesthetically pleasing. One and done.
Since I had seen Déjà Vu (#48) running, I figured I better get that credit before it goes down mechanical. The station for this looks like the starting gate at your friendly neighborhood horse racing track. The operations were such that the line was long, but they were doing a good job of cranking people through the ride. I had no problems with height (I’m close to the 76” listed maximum height). These Deja Vus get kind of a bum rap as far as the ride goes. It’s a fun ride, I had no headbanging, and it was doing a good job of chewing through a line.
After the Vu, I headed over to the Great Southwest for some B&M goodness, Raging Bull (#49). The line was back to where the queue goes down the steps. It looked like it was going to be a long wait, but boy was I wrong. The line was one of the fastest moving ones I’ve ever seen, and I was through the ride in less than half an hour. As for the ride itself, wow! Lots of kick and floater airtime, smooth as glass, and a great crew! If this isn’t a Top 10 steel, it’s a rotten shame.
I’ve cleaned up the steel credits, so it’s time to get the woodies. Since Viper (#50) was close by, I headed there. The line looked very long, though. But I was proved wrong again. This was another fast-moving line. I sat in the very back, and the ride was nothing too spectacular.
Next came the long, long walk back to American Eagle. This is the one of the longest queues I have ever seen. It’s a long hike out to where the line splits for the Red and Blue trains. LONG hike. I started on the Blue side (#51), and got a ride a lot like Viper. Kinda smooth, fast, but not much in the way of either floater air or kicks of air. Same with the Red side (#52). However, contrary to reports seen here on TPR and elsewhere, my second ride on the Red train actually ran racing against the Blue train, and it wasn’t until this happened that I noticed the trim on the Red side going into the helix. Either way, either side of Eagle wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t SO DAMN FAR TO GET BACK TO THE LOADING PLATFORM!
It’s a hot day, and I’m thinking about going over to SFGAm’s new Hurricane Harbor waterpark. But first, I decide to go over to the original Batman: The Ride (#53). I notice that unlike the queue out at SFMM, which is themed like a disaster area, the theme for the SFGAm queue is a construction site by Gotham Public Works. The line had some great techno music in the queue, until the CD ran out. Next CD up: the batman soundtrack with “Kiss from a Rose” by Seal on it. It was a bit unusual hearing “Kiss from a Rose” in the queue line for a major roller coaster. But the ride was just as I expected it to be: fast, forceful, and fun. Rode in Row 2 first, then row 8. Great ride.
After this, I decide to get Demon (#54) out of the way before heading to the car to change equipment. Semi-standard Arrow looper, except in the very front, where for some reason, the nose cone has been closed off part of the way. There was still plenty of room for my legs, though. I liked the lights in the tunnel after the second vertical loop, but otherwise, nothing too spectacular.
The crowds up to this point hadn’t been too bad, and I soon found out why. I then went to the car and grabbed my trunks to head to Hurricane Harbor, the waterpark. I got there, and holy cats! The place is a nuthouse! I change, and go over to the waterslide tower with the two body slides, two raft bowls, and two other raft slides. I first go up the body slide staircase, and experience the second-longest wait of the day. There seemed to be some confusion on trying to get people to both slides. I got back down to the bottom, and I grab a hold of one of the double tubes, and I head up the stairs. The line on this side of the tower is almost as long as the body slide line, but faster moving. While in line, I somehow get to talking to the foursome in front of me. We have one of those fun but brief waiting-in-line conversations, and they split up to go down the bowls.
I got through the bowl, and as I scrambled out of the pool, dragging the twin tube along with me, here come two of the foursome over to the tube pile. They ask me if I want to go on some rides with them, and since I’m there myself, I gladly take up their offer. We introduce ourselves, and we get to talking. They’re from Battle Creek, Michigan, they had some campground/hotel problems last night, and they get to make the 4-hour drive back to Battle Creek tonight after leaving SFGAm. We decide to ride the big tube slide, and of the two on the tower, we go for the purple one, the one with the long airtime run. It’s a great time talking with these folks on the way up. We have to split into twos to ride the slide. Me and Tyler, the other guy in our group of five, opt to go last. We come out of the tunnel absolutely flying, and we get some MONSTER air. So much air that had we all gone in one tube, as had been originally suggested, we would have likely been scraped up somewhere around the Wisconsin border. The lifeguards get SOAKED, and we all collapse in hysterical laughter. We got so much air that Tyler hurt his shoulder on impact.
After we change, we split up. I have to go out to my car to get some of my stuff (camera, phone, wallet), so we exchange phone numbers so we can meet back up after I get back in the park. After making the swap, I call Tyler’s phone about a dozen times, to no avail. By this time, the sun is going down, and I get some inspiration on what to shoot for video and pictures. One of the songs that just came on the park’s background sound is “Shadow Dancing” by Andy Gibb. I started shooting lots of sundown footage with this inspiration. After circling the park getting lots of footage, I run into Tyler and company by accident. They are getting tired, and are ready to head back to Michigan. It was very nice meeting you all. If you are reading this TR, message me.
Anyway, after bidding the Michigan Four adieu, I shoot footage until my camera battery dies, and then I start taking night rides. Viper really came alive as the sun went down. I rode in row 6, and it went from a “meh” ride in the back row to a “Wow!” ride in row 6. Had it not been so damn far back to Eagle, I’d have gone back there to partake in some more wooden madness. I went on two more rides on Raging Bull (rows 8 then 9), with the ride getting better and better.
At this point, it’s 9 PM. Apparently there are going to be fireworks and a show near the one train station at 9, so I wander over to see what it’s all about. The show is unwatchable, so I start positioning myself for a fast run over to Superman after the end of the fireworks, thinking that people are going to start pouring out of the gate after the end of the fireworks, and will draw people out of the park. The fireworks were decent enough, and as soon as the last shot is fired, I walk very quickly over to the Superman queue. The line has indeed shrank (it’s been back in the queue mazes all day) to about half the distance to the station, but it still takes half an hour to get up to the platform.
When I get up to the station, I go to Row 7 of the train. Lo and behold, I line up along side the same three people I’d ridden in the front row with way back at the open. We make lots of comments about how the day is best book ended by rides on Superman. The flying sensation is still great in row 7, but going through the pretzel I thought I was going to black out. Force, force, and did I mention force? A great final ride of the day before I decide to quit it.
I get back to my car, then I start making my way back to the Microtel in Racine. That open-faced turkey sandwich at the Perkins at Kenosha, WI never tasted so good. The remainder of the trip featured stops at the Wisconsin State Fair Park/Milwaukee Mile in West Allis, the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and Lake Zumbrota in rural Wabasha County, Minnesota. All in all, a fine trip to celebrate America’s independence.
THE END
TR: The 3rd Barnyard Road Trip: Iowa 2007 (1/13/2007)
SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 2007
CARVER-HAWKEYE ARENA AT THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
IOWA CITY, IOWA
This was my second Barnyard road trip that I have partaken in. Last year, I went to Northwestern with the gang, and had a great time, despite the fact that the crowd at Northwestern was the worst thing since Long Island Iced Tea Mix In a Bottle. With that thought in mind, I trudged my way over to Williams Arena on a viciously cold Saturday morning to board the coach buses that would take us to Iowa City.There were two buses packed to the gills with Barnyard members.
The trip through southern Minnesota was a quiet one, but as soon as we hit the Iowa state line, the several Marching Band members who were on our bus started singing, and any premonition of waiting for a while to start the festivities promptly went by the boards. The trip down was fun, and included a conversation between several of us in the front of the bus regarding the origins of some of our Gopher Hole aliases. After we went through Waterloo, it began to snow/freezing rain, and by the time we got to Iowa City, there was a coating of slop/ice on the ground.
Killed a little time at a McDonalds in Coralville, then we went over to Carver-Hawkeye Arena. At first, we weren't sure if this was indeed Carver-Hawkeye Arena that we were driving towards. Oh, that ugly lattice gidrerwork is what holds up the roof? Anyway, we go in and find our seats (the top of Section II, for those of you with a seating chart close at hand.
Carver-Hawkeye Arena has elements of the New Mexico Pit (dug out of the ground), Mariucci Arena (open concourse around the top of the arena), and the old St. Paul Civic Center (a constant oval bowl). Carver-Hawkeye is also the most acoustically dead sports arena I have ever had the misfortune of going into. Abraham Lincoln is more alive than the sound in that arena was. We couldn't hear the ref's whistles, the pep band, or any announcements. I'm not sure what caused the place to be that way, but any noise the crowd made was promptly sucked into the abyss, never to be heard again. There is no way for a rowdy crowd to feed of itself. Between the 8 and 4 minute timeouts of the first half, I went around behind the pep band to see if I could hear any noise the Barnyard was making, and I could hear nothing. I'll take the Barn any day of the week. For that matter, I'll take Welsh-Ryan any day of the week, I just don't want that crowd. Also, is "In Heaven There Is No Beer" the UI alma mater?
There are enough discussion threads about the game to take care of that, although I was STUNNED to see in today's Des Moines Register that we out-rebounded the Hawks.
After the conclusion of the game, another Barnyard member and I were grabbed by a man who told us something to the effect of "As a Minnesota alum, I was very disappointed in you today." Now aside from a few chants that were quite off-color and probably should have been left on the bus (particularly with two small children seated immediately in front of us), I thought we did a good job representing the U of M. He didn't bother to elaborate on that point.
One of many things that the Univerity of Iowa is renowned for is the inability to disperse a big crowd, at least compared with the U and those red skunks in Madison. It took 30 minutes to move the 200 or so yards from where the busses were parked to the light on US 6. During this time, one guy told us that despite Northwestern taking Becky to the wire, they couldn't finish the deal.
We arrive at the hotel, and what a clusterf***! The computers were broken down, room keys were screwed up, etc, etc, etc. I won't elaborate, but it involved a LOT of POed people. At this point, the gathering broke up, with some going downtown to get loaded for bear, and others going to get dinner first. I highly recommend the El Dorado Mexican restaurant across the street from our hotel. Excellent meal for a reasonable price.
I ended up going with alltimetwinsfan to the Fieldhouse for a while, then back out to our hotel on the Coralville strip and Old Chicago where the evening ended with a rousing game of shuffleboard. Someone in the Twin Cities has to get one of those shuffleboard tables. That was, without queston, the highlight of the night, which speaks volumes about the nightlife in Iowa City.
It was quite a bit warmer in Iowa City than it was in Minnapolis, warm enough for the precipitation to stay as freezing rain. By 10:00 PM, there was a protective coating of ice on Iowa City, which made crossing the street a dicey proposition. The ice was still there by morning, but as of the time of this writing (the buses were passing Charles City), the roads haven't gotten too bad as of yet.Overall, I had a great time, and would do this again in a heartbeat. Thanks to all the Barnyard folks for organizing this trip, and hopfully things will work out again next season.
CARVER-HAWKEYE ARENA AT THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
IOWA CITY, IOWA
This was my second Barnyard road trip that I have partaken in. Last year, I went to Northwestern with the gang, and had a great time, despite the fact that the crowd at Northwestern was the worst thing since Long Island Iced Tea Mix In a Bottle. With that thought in mind, I trudged my way over to Williams Arena on a viciously cold Saturday morning to board the coach buses that would take us to Iowa City.There were two buses packed to the gills with Barnyard members.
The trip through southern Minnesota was a quiet one, but as soon as we hit the Iowa state line, the several Marching Band members who were on our bus started singing, and any premonition of waiting for a while to start the festivities promptly went by the boards. The trip down was fun, and included a conversation between several of us in the front of the bus regarding the origins of some of our Gopher Hole aliases. After we went through Waterloo, it began to snow/freezing rain, and by the time we got to Iowa City, there was a coating of slop/ice on the ground.
Killed a little time at a McDonalds in Coralville, then we went over to Carver-Hawkeye Arena. At first, we weren't sure if this was indeed Carver-Hawkeye Arena that we were driving towards. Oh, that ugly lattice gidrerwork is what holds up the roof? Anyway, we go in and find our seats (the top of Section II, for those of you with a seating chart close at hand.
Carver-Hawkeye Arena has elements of the New Mexico Pit (dug out of the ground), Mariucci Arena (open concourse around the top of the arena), and the old St. Paul Civic Center (a constant oval bowl). Carver-Hawkeye is also the most acoustically dead sports arena I have ever had the misfortune of going into. Abraham Lincoln is more alive than the sound in that arena was. We couldn't hear the ref's whistles, the pep band, or any announcements. I'm not sure what caused the place to be that way, but any noise the crowd made was promptly sucked into the abyss, never to be heard again. There is no way for a rowdy crowd to feed of itself. Between the 8 and 4 minute timeouts of the first half, I went around behind the pep band to see if I could hear any noise the Barnyard was making, and I could hear nothing. I'll take the Barn any day of the week. For that matter, I'll take Welsh-Ryan any day of the week, I just don't want that crowd. Also, is "In Heaven There Is No Beer" the UI alma mater?
There are enough discussion threads about the game to take care of that, although I was STUNNED to see in today's Des Moines Register that we out-rebounded the Hawks.
After the conclusion of the game, another Barnyard member and I were grabbed by a man who told us something to the effect of "As a Minnesota alum, I was very disappointed in you today." Now aside from a few chants that were quite off-color and probably should have been left on the bus (particularly with two small children seated immediately in front of us), I thought we did a good job representing the U of M. He didn't bother to elaborate on that point.
One of many things that the Univerity of Iowa is renowned for is the inability to disperse a big crowd, at least compared with the U and those red skunks in Madison. It took 30 minutes to move the 200 or so yards from where the busses were parked to the light on US 6. During this time, one guy told us that despite Northwestern taking Becky to the wire, they couldn't finish the deal.
We arrive at the hotel, and what a clusterf***! The computers were broken down, room keys were screwed up, etc, etc, etc. I won't elaborate, but it involved a LOT of POed people. At this point, the gathering broke up, with some going downtown to get loaded for bear, and others going to get dinner first. I highly recommend the El Dorado Mexican restaurant across the street from our hotel. Excellent meal for a reasonable price.
I ended up going with alltimetwinsfan to the Fieldhouse for a while, then back out to our hotel on the Coralville strip and Old Chicago where the evening ended with a rousing game of shuffleboard. Someone in the Twin Cities has to get one of those shuffleboard tables. That was, without queston, the highlight of the night, which speaks volumes about the nightlife in Iowa City.
It was quite a bit warmer in Iowa City than it was in Minnapolis, warm enough for the precipitation to stay as freezing rain. By 10:00 PM, there was a protective coating of ice on Iowa City, which made crossing the street a dicey proposition. The ice was still there by morning, but as of the time of this writing (the buses were passing Charles City), the roads haven't gotten too bad as of yet.Overall, I had a great time, and would do this again in a heartbeat. Thanks to all the Barnyard folks for organizing this trip, and hopfully things will work out again next season.
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