The winner of this rivalry, dating back to 1902 (year of the first Rose Bowl, year Texaco was founded, year Teddy Roosevelt became the first president to ride in a car), gets the Illibuck. Which is basically a wooden turtle. Go figure.
What can it mean, you ask? The seasonal shut down of Champaign's favorite frozen custard spot. The yearly defeat by the Buckeyes. The... did he say Michael Buble?
That's right. Autumn is coming to an end. Since we're slipping into the holiday season, let's take a look back at the 2013 Fall Season.
Corn Maze
We returned to the Hardy Reindeer Ranch to navigate the corn maze. That night was dark and freezing. I did my time in Scouting circles as a youngster and learned this very important maxim: Always Be Prepared. Pursuant to that notion, I brought flashlights, gloves, hat, scarf, and a small bottle of Canadian Whiskey.
The maze layout this year looked like one of the guys from Easy Rider. At least before driving through Mississippi. They had six stations spread through the maze with hole punches. You wandered around with a punch card and looked for every station. We got them all. After two hours.
Here's what it looked like:
We Had the Runs
We did the Rattlesnake Master 5k/10k. This was my 7th and final race of the year. I did one adventure run, two 10k runs, and four 5k runs. It's only the last run of the year because I can't find a December race. Next year, I'll try to find something more productive to do with my time. The run was gorgeous, open prairie-land bordered by trees turned orange, yellow, and red.
Sebastian, who ran the 4th of July Freedom run with us, signed up for this one as well. Then we all went for a post run breakfast at Le Peep, the local Champaign version of IHOP. I got a bacon and potato skillet topped with cheese and basted eggs. So disgustingly unhealthy. So delicious. Also, I doused it with Cholula. Because Cholula. I rest my case.
Aine had pancakes. Of course.
The results:
James 10k - 54:37, 37 out of 83 (pretty much dead center of the pack, where I always find myself)
Aine 5k - 30:38, 69 out of 170
Sebastian 10k - 42:26, 7th out of 83 (he's sort of fast)
This is how we looked:
Bayern Stube
Means "living room" in German. A kitschy little German food restaurant north of here in Gibson City. We make a yearly pilgrimage to gorge on pork and potatoes.
They sell their beers by the liters. I kid you not. There are few things as terrifying as a liter mug of beer. I'll be honest, I wasn't man enough to order a liter of beer. I had two half liters.
Seriously. I don't have the upper body strength to lift it since we stopped doing P90X and they refuse to bring you a straw.
As you can see from the pictures, the walls are covered in animal heads, shelves full of steins, German musical instruments, and bizarre weapons. Like a flint lock pistol that's also a hatchet. Try tucking that one into your waistband.
While you wait for your meal and sip your half liter of beer, they bring soda bread and "sausage butter" to munch on. It looks like butter, spreads like butter, but smells and tastes like summer sausage. Which is sort of how I imagine heaven.
For dinner, I had the Bismark Schnitzel, named after the Chancellor because this is how he preferred it. Pork Schnitzel topped with baked apples and Gruyere. I ordered potato pancakes and saurkraut.
Ainers got pork cutlets covered with brown gravy and potato pancakes and vegetables on the side.
I didn't get a picture of her plate. This is her trying to get a picture of the tapestry behind Jessie. The artist took the time to weave an ornate hunting scene. Including one of the hunting dogs taking a steaming crap in the cold Bavarian woods.
Germans.
Say Cheese
We cut into the second pound of cheese. The one we let age three months. Let me tell you. All the difference. It tasted sharper and had a drier, crumblier texture.
This was the most successful cheese of the year.
Parting Shot
We had our first snow of the year. Baron von Flopsburg found it delightful.
Fraulein Fattywurst prefers to stay in where it's warm.
For lack of anything better to do, I decided to make flash cards of all the flags and capitals of all the countries in the world. And then learn them. I'm at 75% on the capitals and 90% on the flags. When I get these down I'm going to add the US States and Territories and probably all the disputed territories. Like Transnistria and South Ossetia. Look 'em up. They're real places. At least, they're trying to be. But probably not Cascadia, because yawn.
