A Recent Surprising Development

I am sure that there are very few of you reading this that know or care that the Iowa football team will be participating in the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Florida on New Year’s Day. So why is it being mention in my blog? Because, my friend, Linda and I are going to be traveling there to spend New Year’s Eve and to attend the game. So why should you care about that? Well, faithful readers, do you remember who lives in the great state of Florida, about 2 hours away from Tampa? That just happens to be where Darryl lives!

During Darryl’s visit, on one of those rare occasions when the three of us sat around talking about trivial things, we talked about the Iowa Hawkeye Football team and where they might be going to a bowl game. Darryl is also a Hawkeye fan, being he lived in Iowa until just a few years ago. He was hoping that the team would get selected to a Florida bowl. That brought up the discussion of ‘what if’ they did, and it was discussed that it would be great if Linda and I would travel to Florida for the bowl game and spend a few days there.

Low and behold, the Hawkeyes are going to be spending the holidays in warm weather, and it looks like we will be traveling there as well. Immediately after the selection was announced we got a phone call from Darryl asking us to come down and stay with him. He said that if we got game tickets for the three of us and flew down that he would pick us up at the airport and take care of all of the other expenses. We would stay with him at his beach condo.

It is an offer too good to pass up because of the great cost savings. However, I am sure you know what is going to happen. We will be on his turf for 4 days and nights, so he will be very much in charge with what goes on. I am excited about seeing my first bowl game as well as spending a few days in the warmth and sunshine. And Linda is excited about that as well as spending time with Darryl.

Darryl is very excited about having us visit, probably more so than attending the game. He said that he wants to take his ‘girls’ out for an unforgettable New Year’s Eve celebration. He knows that, since we are flying, we will not be able to bring a lot of ‘extra’ clothing, so he has instructed us to ship a box of dress-up/evening wear clothing and anything ‘Beverly will need’ so we don’t have to take it on the plane. Then he will ship it back when we leave.

There is much to be excited about, but also much that I am nervous of. Regardless, the year is going to end on a very different note.