The Wheeler Family

So today was Michael’s first Hawkeye Football game. We started off the morning by getting a ride from Kate to the train “station” on the Hawkeye Express. It took about ten minutes to get there. We got off and went to a tailgate party at the Hawkeye Village. There they had brats, “barbeque” beef, marinated chicken, pork cutlets, potato salad and pasta salad. There were also brownies and carrot cake, as well as pop and water.

We walked back to the stadium and got there about 5 minutes before the gates opened. We weren’t allowed to take in our bottles of water because they supposedly were blue, but they looked clear to me, except for the label on the bottle was blue, and I think it made the bottle look blue with the way the sun was shining on it. Apparently he said college students like to take microsyringes and inject liquor into their bottles and that’s why they only allow clear bottles. Well, this is stupid for a few reasons. First, I’m not going to inject liquor into the bottle of water that my 7 year old son is going to be drinking out of. Secondly, what kind of liquor are they injecting into their bottles? If anyone was going to try and pull that, they’d use a clear liquor anyway, so allowing clear bottles wouldn’t help.

So, we got inside Kinnick Stadium 90 minutes before kickoff. We went to our seats but it was so cold because there was nobody blocking the wind. So we went and I got Michael some hot chocolate. We sat around inside the covered area for a while to keep warm and headed to our seats with about 45 minutes to go. By that time there were a bunch of people around so the wind wasn’t blowing much and it wasn’t too cold. The sun even came out for a while and I was actually starting to get uncomfortably warm in my black jacket.

Finally it’s almost time. The Marching Band came out; that was pretty cool. Herky and the cheerleaders came out, with the big giant flags. Then the Hawkeyes took the field. It was pretty neat too.

Part way though the first quarter the Hawkeyes got on the board with a 7 yard run by Albert Young. The Hawkeyes were up 17-0 at halftime. The second half was a little closer, but in the end, Iowa prevailed 24-14.

I know I had a great time with Michael, and I hope he had a great time as well, and I hope this is something that he can remember for a long time.