My kind of town

This past weekend was a blast! A huge weekend in sports, and a fun trip for the Flenker(s)!

My dad and I started for the Second City early Friday morning, so we could make it in time to take a shuttle to the Cubs game. All along the way, we saw cars full of Hawkeye fans making the trip east for the weekend, a sign of things to come. If you were in Chicago this past weekend, there was a very good chance that you saw black and gold all over the place. Like in this photo I took at Wrigley Field on Friday:

(click to get a better view!)

The game was fun, Hunter Pence was a one-man scoring machine on this day. He hit 2 homers, drove in 5 of the Astros' 6 runs, and the other run he scored. The highlight for me may have been BJ Armstrong singing the 7th-inning stretch, and the fans saying "Root, root, root for the Hawkeyes" instead of Cubbies. It was great. Another great thing? The Royals winning 9-4 over the Twins in the first game of the doubleheader! (I'll get to the second game in a bit.) I had to put this picture up there for H. I'm sure she will appreciate it. . .


After the game, my dad and I headed to our hotel, just in time for the nightly serving of freshly baked cookies. These may have been the best chocolate chip cookies I've had in a long, long while. I wish I had had my camera with me to take photos of my dad and me stuffing our faces. If the cookies weren't enough, we hit up a Lou Malnati's for some Chicago-style pizza. Delicious stuff!

We made it back to the hotel in time to see the end of the Syracuse game get interrupted since a pitcher was throwing a perfect game through 8 innings. A Twins pitcher. Against the Royals. Now I'm a fan of baseball, I would always root for a no-hitter to be thrown, let alone a perfect game. But not when it comes to the expense of the Royals. So when the lead-off man in the 9th was walked, I was cheering. When Mike Sweeney came up to bat for the first time in nearly 2 months and promptly hit a laser into left-center field, I almost jumped off of the bed for joy. Sorry Twin fans, I just couldn't see my team be a part of history.

Saturday morning we got up and headed downtown, towards Soldier Field, and the first game of the Hawkeye's football season. And again, the sea of gold was prevalent. This was the view of the south parking lot, full of gold flags and thousands of drinking Iowans.


And this was the scene inside the stadium, for what was supposed to be a "home game" for Northern Illinois. Unfortunately for them, they were outnumbered by at least 2-to-1 by Iowa fans.

(Their fans are in red. Everyone else was cheering for Iowa!)

Also, this was the view from our seats, not too shabby, even if they were in the second-to-last row. This is one of my favorite moments of any Iowa game, when the team comes out as a group, with the "IOWA" flags out in front of them!


And, one last picture, this time of the mass of people trying to get out after the game had ended.


This was an awesome weekend, I'm extremely glad I was able to go, especially since it was my dad's first time at both Wrigley and Soldier Fields.

This coming weekend should be even more exciting, as Iowa plays their first home game of the season, the reason why I'm still here, why I waited to move. I needed to say one last goodbye to Kinnick as a resident of Iowa. And, I needed a good time to have some people in town and have a good old time. So if you're in the area, you're more than welcome to stop by Iowa City and join in any fun, there should be plenty to go around! But for now, I'm exhausted, enjoy the pictures!