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!