Homecoming at Iowa

Last night was homecoming time in Iowa City. Since we have small children any chance to attend a parade is well received in our house.

The funniest thing I've noticed about Homecoming at Iowa (this is year #2) is that it pales in comparison to the Homecoming parades at the little school I attended down in Missouri. (You can see a pic of a float if you follow the link and click on the Homecoming tab)

I think this is a good thing because in college we spent way, way too much money on useless Homecoming decorations to compete between the Greek organizations. Not to mention the impact to our grades for all the work time over study time, and our wallets for all the beer. After seeing the fantastic floats and house decorations at my college it's kind of a downer though to see how it is at Iowa.

It's too bad too that it's an election year because a lot of the parade was candidates parading up and down the parade route. The even more unfortunate thing is that most of them were Republicans. HA!!

One thing that rocked about Iowa Homecoming was that they had a free concert on the Pentacrest. They had Guster and Kansas. I had never heard of Guster but I've heard of Kansas and we were both bound and determined to see them.

The concernt didn't start until 8 and we had to listen to Guster first. They were actually pretty good. The poor guys were playing on rented equipment because their intstruments didn't make it when they flew in. Gotta love those airlines!

But we were waiting for Kansas. The first rock band to incorporate a violin player. The people that invented Dust in the Wind so Will Ferrell could sing it for Blu and become the stuff of legends. Of yeah, we were excited to hear Kansas. But we had two little kids to contend with and Kansas wasn't going to be on until way, way past their bedtimes. But Mom and I were determined to hear them, even with crying kids and temperatures in the upper 40s at an outdoor concert. So we waited. Outside, in lawn chairs. With a blanket and no hottie totties in sight.

While we waited we had some time to make plenty of observations.

My assumption about the college kids would be that most of them would be two sheets to the wind after a hard day of partying, but I think most of the early ones were relatively sober. As the night progressed we watched girls in halter tops and t-shirts come out and watch the concert. Obviously they were a little sauced otherwise I don't know how they could ignore the cold. And watching them walk across the lawn to the concert was high comedy. Between the beer and heels I was sure someone would turn an ankle and there were plenty of stumbles. Oh the days of yesteryear.

We saw this lady. She was interesting. Yes, she is wearing a cape. And a pleated pink skirt. And a green t-shirt. An interesting mix. The funniest thing about her was her "dance" moves. When she danced she kind of swung around in circles letting her cape fly and billow around her. Kind of like how little kids will sometimes put their hands out to their sides and swing around in circles. It was eerily reminescent of how a superhero would fling their cape around too. If I had a cape I would do the same thing. Wouldn't you? You know you would. Come on now, don't lie to us. But I'm really questioning her thoughts of pairing a t-shirt with a pink skirt. I don't think it really matched well with the cape.

By the time Kansas came on we had finally gotten one child to sleep in a stroller (using my coat for a blanket) and the other was on my lap wrapped in a blanket and starting to fall asleep. I think the hypnotic effect of their stage lights was helping. And so we listened to Kansas with two sleeping kids and at the end when they FINALLY played the two big songs Rachael made her way up to the stage for a few pics of the band and I rocked out while holding a 2 year old, well, as much as I can anymore.


All we are is Dust in the Wind.

FGLB