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Nathan hosted a tailgate party before the Illinois-Missouri Arch Rivalry game Saturday, and Tom, Luke, and I drove down Thursday night to attend. We spent Friday touring Monsanto facilities and preparing for the tailgate, and most of Sunday recovering, before enjoying the St. Louis nightlife. Monday involved video game rock and a brief stop to see a wind farm in west-central Illinois.

We arrived rather late Thursday night, partially because I had to stop in Woodhull to pick up a screen tent we intended to use for the tailgate. I didn’t want to go into the house, because Katie caught the swine flu, and had to come home from school. I learned from one of the neighbors, who stopped by to chat, that the story spreading around Woodhull is that Katie had to be airlifted out of Champaign. Luckily, that wasn’t true, and she’s now fine. (After learning Katie had the H1N1 flu virus, I suggested (via text message) that she eat a pork chop to feel better… Such a loving big brother.)

Upon arrival in St Louis, Nathan lit a bonfire and we caught up. Before too long, we decided to hit the sack, because we had a tour of Monsanto’s corporate data center scheduled for Friday morning. The tour was pretty impressive, especially their main control room, which sported a huge video wall used to monitor worldwide systems, ongoing issues, and news and weather. We walked the main floor—I was amazed at the heat differential between the “cold aisles” and the “hot aisles.”(Basically, they have the air conditioning systems blowing cold air from the floors thru vents in certain rows. The equipment is set up facing these cold aisles, so their exhaust heat blows out to the hot aisles.)

After the data center tour, we went out to Monsanto’s Chesterfield Biotechnology Research Center. After days of making jokes about worrying about something from Resident Evil, I was pretty excited about this tour. We were greeted at the main reception by a surly black woman who told us that we had gone to the wrong building. After wandering the campus a bit, we were eventually flagged down by our tour guide Bill. Bill brought us into the visitors’ center area, where we saw some slides about how their technology is developed, and some videos about their new branding effort, “Genuity.” After that, we got to see their grow rooms and labs, where their researchers ignored us watching them work. The scale of their work was quite incredible.

We finished the tour around 3:30, a bit later than we expected. We planned to play a round of golf, but decided it would be best to try to make sure the generator we hoped to use at the tailgate was available. After calling around, we finally found a Hertz rental facility that carried portable generators in the size we needed. Unfortunately, they were located about twenty miles away, and traffic was a mess. Nathan and I arrived fifteen minutes after closing time in my 300C, which turned out to be too small to transport their smallest generator. The manager offered to take it to his home, though, and let us pick it up later that night in another vehicle. We closed the deal, and drove back to Nate’s place. We really appreciate his helping us out like this, even if, in retrospect, it would have been better if we had just played golf.

Since it was too late to golf, we started getting things in order for the tailgate. Nate and I brought back a massive order of Penn Station, which was eagerly devoured by the group. I made some pasta salad, and we got things together so they could be loaded up in the morning. Nate had dog sitting to do, so he and I headed to Chesterfield to take care of the dogs. I eventually got to sleep around 1 a.m., after putting together detailed lists and schedules with Nate, Tom, and Luke.

We woke up Saturday morning to a downpour. The weather forecast had predicted 0.1″ of rain scattered over the course of the day, but it easily surpassed that total before we had been up an hour. The revised forecast called for rain throughout the morning. Amazingly, I was ready to go at the agreed-upon time of 7:45 a.m., but I arrived downstairs to find Nate sitting at the computer in his underwear, looking forlornly at the radar.

Allan and Nate had talked earlier in the morning and had decided not to head to the stadium as early as originally planned. Unfortunately, Allan had not relayed this information to the rest of the people at his house, and so Tom, Luke, Kelby, and Dan loaded the cars as scheduled. They then had to unload the cars—removing the generator and electronics—upon the change in plans. Needless to say, they were not happy, but I want to reiterate that, out of character, I was ready on time.

Eventually, Nate and I hit the road. We did some minor errands and headed to meet up with the guys. I ended up riding to the game with Nate’s friend Gregg. Despite traffic on the way downtown (at least one large accident on the interstate), we made it down by around 10:00 a.m., and met up with the Lannings.

The tailgate ended up being pretty successful. We certainly had a good time, and while it was muddy throughout, it did eventually stop raining. The keg and grill were successfully used for their respective purposes, and we prepared ourselves for the game. The guys who had loaded and unloaded the cars (especially Tom) got ribbed about the lack of the generator—something that became a bit of a running joke over the weekend.

Unfortunately, the game was a debacle. What happened to our vaunted “offensive juggernaut?” The play on the Illini side of the ball was uninspired and, frankly, embarrassing.

After the game, we headed back to the tailgate, where we tried to forget about what we just witnessed. Eventually, things wound down, and I joined Allan, Maria, Jennifer, and their group in their hotel room to change. They had ordered pizza, which they were gracious enough to share with me, and we made our way to a local piano bar in the Landing.

We enjoyed the dueling pianos for a while, but I wanted to meet up with my friends, so Maria and I hailed a cab and met Nate, Tom, Luke, Kelby, and Dan at McGurk’s in the Soulard area of St. Louis.

Before too long, we had had enough, and found ourselves back at Nate’s place to end the night. After a long day, we actually turned in fairly early—probably around 1:00 a.m.

Sunday morning, we hurt. Brunch at Granite City helped, as did a marathon session of Guitar Hero and Rock Band. I didn’t actually get in on the rocking, but the volume was loud enough that from my location in Nate’s upstairs living room, I could easily have been playing the games at a normal volume on the TV I was watching. Reports of ringing ears and temporary hearing loss were the predictable result…

Eventually, we made our way to Soulard, heading back to McGurk’s for dinner. We didn’t realize their kitchen closed early on Sundays, and so were denied sustenance. Luckily, Gregg’s girlfriend knew of a pizza joint a couple blocks away. (I enjoyed a delicious personal double-crust sausage pizza.)

Our hunger sated, I drove the crew (now minus Gregg and his girlfriend, who had gone to the Landing to see a friend of theirs play actual instruments in front of actual crowds) to Bar 101. Initially worried about the lack of people at Bar 101, it turned out to be a really cool place. They have two huge sand volleyball courts, a great tropical outdoor atmosphere, and cheap drinks. (It helps to know the staff. It also helps to be drinking water—which I was.) Worn out from the weekend’s activities, I called it a night a bit earlier than the rest of the crew, and drove back to Nathan’s house with my iPhone as my guide. The rest of the guys followed me back in a cab a couple hours later, and promptly fired up Guitar Hero again, luckily with the volume much lower.

On our final day in St. Louis, we slept in. Since I had taken the previous night off, I felt great, but the rest of the group was certainly in recovery mode. After playing some more Guitar Hero, during which I was obligated to lend my beautiful singing, we made our second visit to Penn Station. Despite a lit “Open” sign, the first location we visited was closed for Labor Day, but luckily their other location was open, and we feasted.

After dropping Nate back off at his place, Tom, Luke, and I hit the road home. We made excellent time, with the exception of a brief stop near Boynton, Illinois, to get a closer look at the Rail Splitter Wind Farm. The wind turbine towers are quite beautiful, and at 265′ high, with another 127′ from the blades, are even more impressive up close than they are from the highway. Luke thought they’d be pretty loud, but even from directly below the towers, they were almost silent as they turned briskly in the wind. (More information about the Rail Splitter installation can be found here.)

Arriving back in Woodhull, Tom and I had dinner with Mom and Dad before heading on our way. Despite the loss Saturday, the long weekend was a great success, and I had a blast hanging out with everyone. Thanks to Nate and his roommates for hosting us for a few days!