Insight.com Bowl - A Success!

At the game

I never got around to blogging about the remainder of our trip to Arizona. Given that we spent more time traveling to and from the state of Arizona then we were actually there, I didn't have much time to post on arrival. We were in Tempe for 2 days. It was amazing. Most of the time we spent doing Insight.com Bowl game events, which the Iowa State Alumni Association did a great job of organizing. In the

On Wednesday evening we drove out to Rawhide, which is a replica wild west town. They had a pep rally with the coach, team members, and other university officials. I wasn't expecting a huge crowd, but it was packed. There were 5,000 fans there for the rally. It was crazy - you couldn't go anywhere because the lines for food and drink were so long. We listened to most of the pep rally and then decided to eat at the steakhouse in this "town." It wasn't anything special, but the food was decent and they had a live band playing, which was kind of nice. After that, we headed back to the hotel.

On Thursday, we go up and got ready for the game. The game was at 4:00, but the pap rally was downtown Tempe at noon. We got something to eat at a local Irish bar, which was amazing. I would barely finish half of my corned beef sandwich, let alone the fries! After that we headed to the pep rally to get our bead, tattoos, and stickers. There were about 10,000 fans at the game-day rally. I can't believe how many people made the trip - many driving both ways to get there! We stayed for an hour or so and walked toward the game. We wanted to get in to check out the stadium and get to our seats.

The stadium was mostly full of Iowa State fans. Seriously, it was like 10:1 Cyclones:Golden Gophers, which definitely made for a better game atmosphere. The pregame was decent - parachuters came down on the field and they had fireworks. I won't say much about the game other than to note that Iowa State won 14-13. It was a close game at the end and could have gone either way, but a win is a win, no matter how ugly. I am just happy the Cyclones won. Otherwise, Todd would have been really upset. He gets so mad just watching the game at home when they lose. I did not want to deal losing after making the trip out.

After the game, we were hungry and found some food at a local bar. The servings were huge and it was super cheap food. We had no clue going there, but we could have split dinner it was so big! After that, we walked around Tempe's New Year's Eve block party. It was huge! We heard this is the biggest block party after Times Square. I am not sure if that is true or not, but it was definitely packed with people, food vendors, rides, activities, and 40 bands. It was $15 just to get in and we had to go through security, which was interesting. There were police in full riot gear, police on foot, on bikes, in cars, and on horse. It was crazy. Someone said that the was a big street fight a few years ago, so they are prepared I guess. We stayed long enough for the fireworks at 10pm (celebrated the New Year in the Eastern time zone). After that we were so exhausted due to the time change, our travel, and everything we squeezed into the trip, we headed back to the hotel. We heard the fireworks at midnight celebrating the Mountain time zone, but we were in bed already. Lame, I know, but we were so exhausted.

I was not excited to go home at all. I LOVED the weather in Tempe and didn't want to deal with work after being gone for a week (the emails were piling up even though lots of people were on vacation, too). But, I did want to get home to my dogs. I always miss them!

All in all, it was a good trip. I was surprised I did made it that far in the car. I don't mind traveling, but driving for 24 hours is not my idea of fun at all. But, I watched a ton of movies, read through my stack of magazines, and kept up my social networking (about the only time I was good about keeping up with that). :) I am hoping we can head back out there to catch some spring training games. I have always wanted to go to spring training, but have yet to make it. Maybe this year??

In the Arizona sun