I know this is kind of hard to believe, but until this weekend, I had NEVER gone to a Hawkeye football game. Never! I've lived in Iowa almost four whole years now, and I'm 30 minutes from Kinnick, but somehow I never made it into the actual stadium. Well, that all changed on Saturday when I attended my first ever college football game.

To be honest with you, I still don't care about football... at all. But, I still had an awesome time! We got down to Iowa City just before 3 p.m. on Saturday and immediately joined in the tailgating festivities. I'll tell you what, the atmosphere down there is just amazing. I've tailgated down there a couple of times over the past few years, but I forgot how much fun it is! The best part had to be the people-watching. It's never-ending entertainment.

We took a break from our tailgating to walk down to Kinnick and watch the buses arrive, where we also took some standard stadium photos and I spent $35 on an Iowa tank top. It's a really nice Nike one, so it was worth it. After that, we continued to party on Melrose until around 6 p.m., and then we headed into the stadium. We arrived at our seats just in time to see the team come on to the field, which was a really cool moment to witness.

My favorite part of the evening was definitely seeing The Wave live in-person. I may or may not have teared up a little bit, especially at halftime when both teams came together on the field while Pat Green sang his signature song. After spending time up on that 12th floor for Radiothon last month, I have a different perspective on the whole thing. It was pretty emotional.

My least favorite part of the game was the HEAT. That also made me pretty emotional, but not in a good way. Being crammed into that stadium with thousands and thousands of sweaty people and zero breeze was slightly miserable. We ended up leaving right after halftime, since we were winning, anyways. Eventually, we found our way to Downtown Iowa City, which is where we spent the rest of the evening. That's also where I realized that I'm way too old to party for almost 12 hours straight. I'm proud to report that I made it all the way until bar close, but not without several stops at various street vendors to reenergize. We had some really good walking tacos, grilled cheese from Marco's, and another creation from Marco's that was absolutely amazing. I present to you... The Birdman:

Here are a few other photos from my very first college football adventure:

More From 104-5 KDAT