I’m starting to sense a trend here…
For years, I’d been trying to get tickets to see the Savannah Bananas on their yearly barnstorming tour. This year, Hilary won the lottery for tickets and offered to pick some up for me and Brandy.
The game was scheduled for 7:30 pm, Friday, July 3, shortly after my return from The Camping Trip That Wasn’t™.
The Bananas promised a couple of hours of pre-game events that I wanted to attend, that I knew Brandy wouldn’t care to go for so we made the decision that I would drive up early and go to those pre-game activities and her and Hilary would join me closer to game time.
After a morning haircut, I headed to the Coral Ridge Mall, parked at about 2:30, and called a life-long friend of Sue’s, Matt, for a ride to Kinnick Stadium, where the University of Iowa Hawkeyes play football.
Matt dropped me right in the middle of the crowd. I immediately got in line for the line of merchandise booths. Finally, my turn, I picked up a hat, a couple of shirts, and a baseball then made my way to the entrance gate into the Pre-Game Pavilion.
Pre-Game Pavilion
It was a hot day, over 90° in Iowa City with the Corn Sweat in full swing. The crowd glistened with their collective sweat as seas of people wearing Banana Yellow moved about.
Along with a massive tent acting as a “Team Store” of sorts (with a mile-long line to boot,) there were food and beverage stands set up throughout the large, open space, selling ridiculously overpriced concessions.
Then, at the far end of the area, was a large stage set up where the teams were in the midst of a variety show that included singing, dancing, hell, they even held a husband-calling contest.
After the last of the confetti died down, the teams paraded through the open space and not long after, the gates into the stadium were opened.
The crowd shuffled through agonizingly slowly until I was finally able to get to the tunnel up to my section. I took the tunnel that was still stuffed with people just standing there to the top where large groups of people were just standing there.
I pushed through them and went down to my seat near the end-zone of what would be the football field.
There were pre-game announcements and trivia and videos and what-not to keep the crowd engaged, and then…
The Weather
An announcement was made that lightning was spotted close by and if it got too close, they were going to delay the start of the game. Policy states that the game must be delayed to 30 minutes after the last lightning strike. That means if it was 26 minutes since the last lightning, and it struck again, the clock started over.
No sooner did they finish that announcement did they then tell us that the lightning was too close and they asked those in the stands to take shelter under the concourse.
I got up and moved my way back through the crowds of people just standing there, down the tunnel lined with people just standing there and onto the concourse that was packed with a throng of people just standing there. I again pushed my way through and tried messaging Brandy to see where they were. I barely got enough signal to get a message out. At that point, they were in line to get in, and they weren’t even letting anyone in. They were stuck outside while I was inside. I meandered a bit trying to figure out which gate they were trying to get in through, calls were not going through, texts were unreliable, and then, the skies opened up.
A deluge of rain soaked the uncovered areas of the Pre-Game Pavilion and the queues of people waiting to get in…
…including Brandy and Hilary.
I scrambled trying to get enough of a signal to call and finally found a corner of the Pavilion that had enough signal strength to make the call. I finally reach Brandy, figured out where they were and asked if they wanted to leave.
“Yes!” was the resounding response.
So I made my way out the gate, we separated ourselves from the crowd and called Matt for a ride back to the mall to retrieve our vehicles. He obliged and from the mall, the three of us headed to Red Ginger for a sushi dinner before hitting the road for the hour and a half drive back to Ottumwa.
The Show Must Go On!
While we drove through some of the worst storms I’ve had to drive through since moving to Iowa (mainly because I was driving on dark, rural highways with no street lights,) Brandy read that eventually, the game to start at about 9:00 pm. With a promised show length of 2 hours, that means the game wouldn’t have ended until 11:00, then with the ride back to our cars and the hour and a half drive home, if we had stayed, we wouldn’t have gotten home until probably after 1:00 am.
It’s better that we left.
Conclusion
Of course, I was disappointed we couldn’t see the game. The pre-game activities were pretty cool, getting caught in the rain had the potential to be romantic AF, and I always love fighting a little bit of adversity so it wasn’t a total bust.
Who knows, perhaps next year, we can make it all the way to the end of the game!
In the meantime, a few pics from my brief time at Kinnick are available on the ol’ PD, be sure to head over there and check them out, and read on for the first of many multi-week trips on our Accidental World Tour of 2026.
Until then,
-Phil