Trip Recap: Minnesota @ Iowa 11/21/09 OR...

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2009
KINNICK STADIUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
IOWA CITY, IOWA

If the third time wasn’t the charm, then perhaps the fourth one is? I’ve been to Iowa three times before for Gopher football games, and have yet to see a Gopher win of any sort. Throw in a basketball trip, and that makes me 0-4 in the depths of Mordor.

Any drive across northern Iowa is going to be very, very flat and boring. Jake and I left the Twin Cities around 4, after a half-hour setback in which he forgot his ticket. After nightfall, the Avenue of the Saints between the Minnesota-Iowa border and about Charles City often looked like an alien invasion, because of the single red lights atop the hundreds and hundreds of wind turbines.

We made it through the alien invasion and into Iowa City. Friday was a fairly quiet evening. A stop at Hy-Vee for some drinking material, and we headed to where we were staying. (where can’t you go in Iowa or southern MN and not find a Hy-Vee?) I was staying with a friend who is a doctoral student at UI. No one had any cell phone reception back there (for that matter, no one else in IC had reliable service), so we had to run back to the bar to call anyone.

The rest of the group was staying at a Motel 6 in Coralville that was, to be very complimentary, sketchy. Word is that a prostitution ring was busted in the very room the organizer was sleeping in. High class establishment. We ran over to the bar that was across the street for a quick drink and to discuss strategy for the following morning.

0620 came all too early. Jake took a quick shower while I went out and fetched the case of beer. My friend had tipped us off that there was a city bus that would take us into campus and the stadium, and it left the stop immediately outside the building at 6:49. This seems like a reasonable way to get into the stadium and tailgate area, but as always there’s a hook. Seems all the buses on Saturday avoid the area of campus west of the Iowa River, next to Kinnick Stadium and the UI hospitals. The bus dumps us off across Melrose Avenue from the Finkbine Golf Course. We hoof it from there all the way over to the parking lot that used to be the Grassy Knoll, on Myrtle Avenue just up the hill from the Kum ‘n Go. (Another high-quality Iowa institution)

The Hawkeyes next to us have a nice bean-bag set, and they thought they were pretty good at it. Unfortunately, they challenged my buddies. They proceeded to get destroyed by all comers wearing maroon and gold, and there are quite a few of them. After doses of humility were dished out, breakfast fajitas were handed out, and you can take a guess where most of the makings came from. The tailgating proceeded at breakneck pace until about 10:15, when everyone staggered across the footbridge towards Kinnick.

Curiosity got the better of me while on the way over to the game. For all of these visits, as well as watching many, many football games from Kinnick, I had never partaken in one of the aforementioned “Big Ass Turkey Legs.” For $8, I decided to try one of the things, slathered in barbecue sauce. It wasn’t too bad. Sure there were a lot of uncooked tendons and ligaments, and the sauce was very messy, but it was good nonetheless.

The game has been discussed ad nauseam on these boards.

After the game was over, both Jake and I were nursing wicked hangovers. We went back to the tailgate and milled around for a while, but a cab was sitting there and after a while, we just went back to my friend’s condo. After a siesta, shower, and change of clothes, we headed downtown for some chow. We worked on a pizza at the Airliner, and it was FANTASTIC pizza. I highly recommend it to anyone going to IC.

Having heard nothing from the rest of my friends, we went back to the condo, watched Stanford-Cal, and was just about to retire before finally getting the call from the guys at Brothers. Jake was the sobercab, and he would have just dropped me off at Brothers and gone back if it weren’t for the fact that the bar had bought the UFC pay-per-view, and it was on every TV in the bar. It was a solid card, and it was a good enough excuse to stay and drink til about 12:00. The party then shifted back to The Edge (the bar across from the Motel 6 and no relation to the U2 guitarist). Let’s just say that Ah Leah isn’t just a song by Donnie Iris.

This is where I really poured the coals to the alcohol. Shots and 7-7s were being passed around like water. When we got going back to Minneapolis the following morning, I wasn’t feeling too terribly awful. I figured I’d be able to drive a hundred or so miles before needing to hand off and sleep. Somehow, I not only drove the whole way back to MSP, but did it in four hours.

Huge thanks to my friend who let us stay in their condo. Also to Big Jake, for putting up with my alcohol-fueled shenanigans. I always have fun on these trips, win, lose, or draw.

GR