more posts...

RSS 0.92

December 18, 2003

Road trip: Florence for the D-II Football Championship

Jim Dahl

Since my team was not victorious, I'm obligated to open my comments with the observations that some of the opponents' fans were rude and that the officials made some calls that I thought favored the opponent.

On the road

Every time I've driven down I-90/94 through Illinois, I've wondered the same thing: Why does Illinois make me stop and pay a $0.40 toll (a dime, nickel, and quarter, the most inconvenient possible toll) every 10 miles? Almost every other state issues you an entry slip that marks when you enter their highway system and then lets you pay the total that you owe when you leave. I guess it's more expensive to employ human toll collectors than $0.40 counting machines. On this trip I managed to avoid most of the toll hell by taking I-39 around Chicago, instead.

States I drove through: Wisconsin, Illinois, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama. The last two were new to me. Driving down Illinois rivals driving across North Dakota in terms of excitement.

In Florence

We arrived in Florence just after 8:00pm Friday, so drove straight to the Holiday Inn in Sheffield where a UND pep rally was scheduled. The crowd was singing "Happy Birthday" to Coach Lennon as we arrived. The band and cheer team filled out the room quite well by surrounding the 70 or so other guests (not an official park service estimate). Thomas, Bollinger, and Lennon each gave their obligatory speeches and the band played rousing renditions of the school song. UND's host at the Holiday Inn, Danny(?), took the microphone to explain directions to the stadium, "You can't get there from here". I ended up socializing until a bit after 11:00pm.

I stopped into my hotel just up the street, announced to the clerk that I had a reservation, to which she responded, "Hello James". Either I'm far more famous than I thought, or I was the only one with an outstanding reservation. Having not eaten since lunch and having consumed a few beers at the reception, it was time for dinner! Unfortunately, I drove to each of the places she suggested to find they were closing at midnight, so my first night of attempting to soak up the local culture culminated in eating Gorditas at Taco Bell (open late!)

Game day!

I must be getting old -- rather than waking up at 10:00am as I intended, I was wide awake at 8am. Though we stalled as long as possible, we still arrived at the tailgating at about 11:30am. It turned out to be perfect because we were able to park right by the Sioux tents.

They served a decent pulled pork sandwich with hot slaw for lunch; fortunately, I went through the food line just before the charter flight arrived. Sioux fans lined the road as the Sioux team arrived in buses with a police escort, sirens blaring. The team walked the length of the street, greeting fans on their way to the game. The buses had driven up a previously closed street where Sioux fans had gathered, but of course a few cars trying to take a shortcut to the stadium had snuck through. Their occupants seemed rather bored during the 20+ minutes they were stuck at a standstill behind the band performing in the street for the gathered Sioux fans.

The Game

GVSU had a great showing -- lots of fans . It didn't rain at all the first half, but for each of the first two Sioux drives in the second half, a downpour began right as the Sioux were nearing field goal range; I think we all remember the outcome of that first drive, though I'm still trying to figure out how to blame GVSU fans or the refs for the poorly timed rain. I was more interested in watching the game than positioning myself to get great photos, but I did get some, particularly of the pre-game festivities. The rain complicated things during the game, so I switched to a film camera; unfortunately those turned out even worse.

Around Florence

I stopped in Cajun's after the game -- great bar atmosphere with lots of fans of both teams. Everyone from both teams was very friendly and actually had some pretty intelligent conversation about the game; I guess the people who take the time to travel to Alabama take the time to know the game. I got the cajun platter with mixed results: most of the seafood on that particular platter was breaded, which is not my favorite; the devil crab was excellent; frogs legs are always something different, and the breading on that particular item is appreciated.

A visit with a bartender at another establishment was funny. Another customer observed that there weren't many bars in town. The bartender responded, "We used to have more bars but there were the stabbings and the people going missing and so they cracked down on drunk driving so the bars closed."

It was unfortunate that 70%+ of my time in Florence was spent at a UND event or at the game, as I really didn't explore the area much. Cajun's was fun and the vast majority of the locals and GVSU fans were very friendly. The UND events were a blast and it was great to see a bunch of Sioux fans. A different outcome to the game itself would have been welcome, but I'm very happy to have decided to make the trip.