Orange You Glad It's Game Day?

I feel it's time to discuss a very serious affliction to which this town succumbs on an alarmingly regular basis. That is, Illini Fever.

We live within walking distance of the stadium, so every game day, our neighborhood streets and intersections flood with orange clad football fans. They park at the business suites by the Boulware Trail, in every available spot at Hessel Park, and up and down the neighborhood streets across Kirby. Then they walk, milling crowds wearing orange and blue, staggering like zombies in front of your car at intersections.

My next door neighbor, last weekend, had a tailgate party in front of my apartment. We walked out at 9 am to run some errands, and a gang of corn fed locals sat in camping chairs around a burger laden grill, drinking cheap beer.

I tried to get some pictures from the car as we sped to safety. You can see them loitering in the Walgreens parking lot and crowding the intersections.

Across the street you can see Merry Ann's diner. I haven't yet determined whether the owner's name is Mary and she doesn't know how to spell or if her name is Ann and she's very happy to be there.

And here you can see down Kirby, past the Illinois Central. This is the spot the orange multitudes funnel into the stadium.

Parting Shot
This is completely unrelated. I noticed this when we first moved to the new apartment. The city has planted a little park in a stretch of grass between the Illinois Central and Neil Street. I'm not sure what makes it a park, I mean, you wouldn't want to play frisbee there or anything and trying to cross Neil to get to the park is tantamount to suicide. However, in this park, the Champaign Parks Department has planted a peacock. I got these pictures from a moving vehicle, so don't judge too harshly. The body is made of some kind of bag and the flowers and shrubs make up the tail. I'll try to get a better picture soon.