Big 10 Football Tour

Before we get too into this installment, we want to tell everyone to click the spots where it says "click HERE!"  Clicking on the "HERE" takes you to another page where you'll see more great content...or maybe it's lame content, but it's still worth a look.  Whew, you wouldn't believe how many people email us asking, "Where are the photos from the game?" because they are unable to clck on the "HERE!"

This was it.  We knew it was coming.  We live in the Midwest.  Hell had arrived.  No the warm hell, the cold one.  Mid-October and we wake up to snow.  F**k.  S**t.  The 8 months of pain has started already!  That's right, week 6 brought the first snow of the Big 10 tour, and even some reasonable accumulation as the day went on.

How to do fight the cold?  A stop at your local Kum & Go as there seems to be one on every corner at Iowa University.

Finally...a real tailgate.  We had the fortune of our first night game starting at 7 PM.  Therefore, we had a minimum of 6 hours to tailgate.  A dilemma then arose as we were scheduled to potentially do an interview with the KCRG television network.  So do you keep it calm so that you can do the interview or do you enjoy the tailgate to the fullest degree?  We took a split approach as Jeff went the "enjoy" route and Drew kept the interview in mind.  Regardless, everyone had a great time!  Check out some of our shenanigans during tailgating HERE!

As the Big 10 Tour is still winless in all Big 10 conference games, we were hoping for a win.   It was also our first night game of the season, televised on ABC.  Would the Hawkeyes stay undefeated.  Read about our experience at Kinnick Stadium HERE!

Wow, more quirky sites than anywhere else in the Big 10!  If you don't click on a single other link on this blog, make sure you click HERE to see some extremely interesting sights!

You may have seen it on the Travel Channel.  When a sign screams "World's Largest Truckstop," you need to pull over.  At night, the place looks like a mini-Vegas.  Sure you can eat or fill up your gas here, but why do that when you could get a haircut, buy a tshirt if a wolf howling at the moon, stop in at the dentist, or buy a new chrome exhaust pipe for your "big rig."  To read about our stop at this trucker's paradise, click HERE.  While reading about the truckstop, make sure you click on the Jesus tshirt link, it's pretty comical.  One word of random advice - don't try to buy a postcard.

While Illinois had its chance the previous week, we drove through a portion of it to get home from Iowa.  On the way home we passed through Dixon, IL which is one of the most interesting small towns in America.  We paid visits to Ronald Reagan, Abe Lincoln, and John Deere while visiting Dixon.  See some of our stops in Dixon right HERE!

Our contestants this week had us asking...did they really buy a t-shirt for just this game?  Many of the Iowa t-shirts were taking shots at Michigan, who they may or may not play once a year.   It seemed a little odd to purchase a shirt for just that game when they could have easily bought a generic Hawkeyes shirt to wear...forever.  Oh well, we applaud their ability to buy one shirt per game.

Keep in mind that this competition now gets significantly more difficult.  As the weather gets colder, everyone wears jackets/sweatshirts/etc so it's getting tougher to find a good shirt!

These guys must not have been enjoying their tailgate too much as they were running around in the street with their sign that they bought at Walgreens.  They were begging cars to honk if the driver of the car though Tate Forcier was gay (not that there's anything wrong with that).  Guys, you've got to find better ways of spreading your school spirit on gamedays!

Our runner up had an awesome hat.  The hat alone got him mention here.

Two of our top competitors from the entire season duke it our here this week.  Ultimately the vehicle to the side was chosen as the winner because anyone would look just plain awesome driving this thing around.  It screams, I know paint jobs!

Our runner up has a lot of rust, bungee cables holding the bumper on, 2 cracked windows, and a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon in the back!

Being that I (Drew) am the only one contributing perspective on the visits, below are my thoughts.  I'm sure Jeff will have some others and may provide them at some point.

Firstly, Iowa City needs more cabs.  The fact that it takes over an hour to hail a cab is pretty rediculous.  Who's doing the demand planning around here?  Next, there needs to be a few more bars.  The bars are so damn crowded that they rape you with a $10 cover charge.  Maybe this was just because it was "big game weekend," but $10 to go inside and buy a beer?  Some places wanted $20!

The fans were generally great - I was really appreciative of all of the fans that contacted us through the website.  You guys were instrumental in helping me identify the sights to see in Iowa City.  I must say however, that I wish the guys from the Magic Bus would have responded to my inquiry to stop in.

The tailgate scene was the best I've seen to date.  Although our tailgate area was 70% Michigan fans, as I walked about the stadium, I could get a feel for what it was all about.  I think there's an option for everyone when it comes to tailgating.  & the fact that they have a train that delivers you right in front of the stadium is just phenomenal.

The front office was pretty lame.  I mean maybe I give them a pass because it was a big game, but they were rather short in all of their responses.

The sites were also positive.  It wasn't the mountains at Penn State or a Great Lake at Northwestern, but one of the most clean/beautiful campuses to date.

As for the game.  Iowa had me sold.  I was loving the AC/DC, Motley Crue, Rolling Stones, Ozzy and more!  One hour into the game, I thought that this was the best stadium for music in sports!  Then they sent in all down the toilet towards the end of halftime playing Sean Kingston, Black-Eyed Peas, Pit Bull, & other hip-hop.  Then they kept playing "Tonight's going to be a good night" over and over and I thought I was going to vomit my 4 bratwurst, 1 hot dog, 1 chicken sandwich, and 1 cheeseburger back up.  The I-O-W-A chant was fun, but there wasn't much else in the form of chant.  The wave was the best executed to date.  I am most thankful that security didn't use brut force on all of the fans that charged the field at game's end.

One last photo before getting back to Milwaukee.  It was a challenging one as it was on the opposite side of the highway and we were going at least 70 MPH.  Found in Beloit, WI is the Hormel Chili Factory.  So of course they have the world's largest chili can out front!

Dion, Ollie - inviting us over to tailgate at his place - recommending us to the Iowa media
Myers, Brent - more Iowa insight
Nelson, Matt - insightful sports travel info.  "almost" interview on KCRG
Wally (keo) - inviting us to some Iowa blogs - great information from fans
Wilson, Dave - getting us to a grocery store, finding us a tailgate spot