The team left left Ann Arbor at 3pm
and traveled west in a full-to-the-brim Ford Escape with broken AC, only
stopping for food and what seems like the only attraction west of Chicago in
the midwest, the World's Largest Truck Stop on Iowa-80. Where we learned that
pigs are to Iowa as wolverines are to Michigan. Alex Mayo, who quickly and
inefficiently packed in under 5 minutes because he was too intent on eating a
burrito and tanning, only brought with him the shirt he was wearing on his back
and was left with little option than buying a "Who Let the Hogs Out Shirt?
Oink, Oink, Oink, Oink" shirt from a truck stop--look for him to don this
in his Ross classes in the near future. We filled our tank with Iowa's $3.20
gallon prices and made our way to Iowa City, where we danced the night away in
our finest Scott Ismail Hawaiian shirt attire and listened to the Iowa marching
band play a crude, yet humorous parody of Hail to the Victors.
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The next morning
we sailed on Lake McBride in a state park next to Iowa's campus, thankfully the
government wasn't shut down yet. We finished mid-fleet most of the day, battling
not only the other boats on the water but also the 15 knot puffs full of
blinding rain. The wind shifts were eerily similar to our home lake, Baseline,
and essentially reached the entire way to the windward mark for two races in a row on Saturday. In A division we had Eddie Zelenak '15, Alex Mayo '15 and Kirsten Boelkins '15. In B division we featured John McCormick '15 and Cody Oeung '14. We
were given pizza and orange juice for lunch, a combination that did not sit
well with most of the sailors evident by the extremely long bathroom lines, and
especially for one Iowa sailor who we came to learn was born without a colon,
which made sense why he frequented the public restroom so often. After the
regatta we went out for a night on the town, sampling Iowa's local restaurants
and bars, and ended our night watching American Beauty at the apartment that
housed us. After the opening scene Kevin Spacey's acting had lulled half the
room to sleep, surprisingly.
The second day was called off because of the lack
of wind, and we quickly packed the car with our gear and headed back to Ann Arbor. The team ended up in 7th of 10 overall, 6th in A's and 8th in B's.
-Eddie Zelenak '15
