Jacksonville: It’s big and it’s ... big

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - They had a Super Bowl here 10 years ago.

I've spent the last several days and nights wondering how, and why. Where did people stay? Where did people eat?

I've been holed up in downtown Jax for a week now. Now, this isn't a bad place at all. No sir. I've been to worse bowl sites, and I haven't been to a lot of bowl sites that I know would be worse.

Jacksonville's weather, a critical criteria for what makes a bowl site tolerable, has been very nice for the most part this week. It will be comfortable at today's TaxSlayer Bowl, where Iowa will play Tennessee in EverBank Field on the edge of downtown.

But this is the largest city in the nation at 884 square miles, and it always feels like you're a long way from something. Downtown has some big buildings, and it has the Florida Theatre, which has all kinds of big-name acts booked for 2015. Jackson Browne, Merle Haggard, Graham Nash, Loretta Lynn, Elvis Costello ... not bad, especially if you're old.

But downtown doesn't quite feel like the center of anything. It was tough Thursday night to find an open restaurant, at least one I hadn't already patronized. And this was the night before a bowl game with tourists not hard to find.

In fact, two Iowa fans (strangers to me) and I both stared hungrily through the window of Burrito Gallery, wishing it was open. I had already been there once. The tacos were sensational.

The hotel room service grilled cheese sandwich I settled for wasn't on the same culinary planet as those tacos.

There's a lot of water here, so that adds to the feeling of isolation. You have to cross a bridge to go almost anywhere. I like bridges. They can be very charming and beautiful. Jacksonville's bridges are those things. But I've felt like I've been on the wrong side of every bridge for a week, and that's disconcerting.

It wasn't until Wednesday when I learned there was such a thing as Jacksonville Skyway, an automated monorail downtown. It took five days here before I ever saw it. When I did, it pulled up to Jefferson Station with no passengers inside it, and no one was there to hop aboard. I love trains, but I do not love ghost trains.

Iowa's football team stayed at a resort in Amelia Island, roughly 45 minutes from downtown Jacksonville. It practiced at nearby Fernandina Beach High School, the home of the Fighting Pirates. Are there any other kinds of pirates, by the way?

The only thing that felt like you were covering a Rose Bowl was making the drive from downtown to Fernandina Beach. I put 1,100 miles on a rental car in a week while covering Iowa's last Rose Bowl appearance.

Which, by the way, was 24 years ago. The Hawkeyes haven't played in California since the Dec. 30, 1991 Holiday Bowl. This is Iowa's eighth game in Florida since then. It has played in Texas six times since its last California visit.

Maybe the Hawkeyes will play in California next year, or near the end of this year. Maybe not.

As you neared the exit from the freeway to go from Jax to Fernandina Beach, you saw several billboards promoting the Florida Citrus Center #60, which billed not only fresh fruit, but live baby gators. It's actually a gas station/gator-and-grapefruit joint in Yulee, a tangerine's throw from a McDonald's and Burger King.

I didn't stop. You've seen one baby gator, you've seen them all.

I'm sure the weather of Cedar Rapids won't feel a bit good after a week here. But what's a little cold weather? Cold, that's what it is. And in some cases, really cold. Yecch.

Speaking of which, the 2018 Super Bowl will be in Minneapolis. The NFL is really weird.