Eleven hours after leaving St. Joseph, we rolled into beautiful Aberdeen, riding sweet in our Intrepid, just in time for midnight. The most notable thing about Aberdeen at night are the “casinos” stuffed into seemingly every gas station and bar – little rooms with slot machines. It's like a midget Vegas, except without the glamor, size or visitors.

In the day light, Aberdeen is a nice, little town – clean and friendly. I suppose it's the kind of place to raise a family, as the old cliché goes. I have a wife but no kids, so I was satisfied just to visit.

We ate lunch at a neat sports bar downtown named Wild Oates – a place with signed football jerseys wall-to-wall of anyone from Bart Starr to Fran Tarkenton to Herschel Walker to John Elway. They also boasted a macaroni-and-cheese pizza where the Velveeta replaces the marinara, the noodles go where the mozzarella would normally be and the toppings are bacon and ham. It was interesting, not necessarily in a bad way. I can't say I would ever eat it a second time, though, but then again, I doubt I'll return to Aberdeen.

Northern State's football stadium sits on the Aberdeen Central High School campus on the south edge of town – a wind-swept expanse of land surrounded by cornfields in three directions and not central to the town in any way. The locker room complex lies to the north of the field, a new structure stretching like a red cement horseshoe the width of the field and track – quite a nice facility from the outside. The FieldTurf also was in good shape, but the actual stadium makes you appreciate the MIAA.

The bleachers were made of weathered wood and metal, the press box a cramped plywood box, the Internet just a rumor and the phone lines temperamental. Spratt Stadium is obviously a low-end MIAA facility, but it's easy to forget that in many other conferences, it would be more than adequate.

A half an hour before kickoff, the Western fans seated in the bleachers actually outnumbered the Northern fans – a testament to the sparse crowd not the Griffons' large traveling party. But the Wolves fans apparently are late arrivers and did just about fill out the home side a few minutes into the first quarter – ready for what turned out to be a pretty entertaining game.