Purdue Drop Off Trip

Thursday Aug 18: As my email to family stated earlier this week , the somewhat dreaded moment had arrived. We left Thursday the 12th to take Sam to Purdue. We left JC late afternoon so we only drove to St. Louis for the night & on into West Lafayette Friday morning. Got to town about 1:30 and after eating started working on our list of things to do. Sam is going to try to establish residency in Indiana (to eventually qualify for in-state tuition) so we stopped by the Motor Vehicle dept to transfer his drivers license. Getting his license didn't work out however because I had accidently mis-typed his name as San instead of Sam on his insurance card and they wouldn't accept it as legit. Grrrr- Government! Sorry, but that's pretty darn picky! We also found out that he had to take a 50 question test, which was never disclosed to us when we called earlier last week. Being one who never wants to fail a tests, Sam said he would at least like to review the book before taking the test. Anyway, we temporarily gave up on that and went to a nearby Old Nat’l Bank (Chris's bank) branch office and opened a checking account & ordered a credit card. We then explored around campus and West Lafayette & per the hotel receptionist's recommendation had pizza at Arni's Pizza. (We were told this was the best pizza in Indiana & it was good but we don't think it probably is) Alice then insisted we get back to the hotel for the debut of Monk's new season- of course!

Saturday we were up and at’m and heading for Earhart (yes- Amelia's) dorm at 8:00- Sam's check-in time slot. We were one of the first ones to move in because we had lots and lots of volunteer help hauling his stuff 3.5 stories up to Rm 409. We started unpacking, making the bed, & getting the room set up. By 10:30 it was pretty well put together & we were starved so we walked over to Union to get some breakfast. Then, as all parents w/students do- we headed to WalMart. By the packed nature of our car, I thought we pretty much brought everything he needed but $200+ later, I guessed we didn't. I labelled it as Sam’s Xmas-in-August event. (Lately he's seemed to have a lot of Xmas's!) We had to stop at the bookstore also to buy Purdue tshirts for everyone. With the frig and all of his dorm storage slots all filled up, I thought we were done. Nope another stop at Target for more! Alice & I attended the parent orientation session on campus at 3 then we hung out on campus & at dorm until we went to dinner at Lafayette Brewery downtown at six. Sam had some activities in PM so we headed back to the hotel.

Sunday we headed back out to campus to exercise and then back to the hotel to shower. Sam was understandably not interested in showering with all the chaos at the dorm. (Lots of parents were checking out the restrooms during move-in) His roommate- Greg Self arrived and moved his stuff into the room while we were cleaning up. Greg is also an Engineering Honors student from near Charlottesville VA. He & his mom flew out so he only brought a couple suitcases of clothes & personal items with the intent to buy everything else he needed here. Sam got a hold of Greg & he & his mom joined us for lunch at Triple XXX - this legendary hole-in-the-wall restaurant near the Purdue campus. (It's name sounds like a strip club!) It's a pretty unique place- there are no chairs and tables- just bar stools & counters & it had good and cheap food. They have been featured on "food network" & are famous for their homemade root beer, peanut butter topped hamburgers, & other signature items.

We dropped Sam back at the dorm then Alice and I took off for Indy to see our college friends- the Porters. We had a great evening at Porters with great food and great company and didn't get back to Lafayette until 11:30PM. It couldn’t have been a nicer visit.

By Monday I finally realized why Alice wanted 4 days to drop Sam off at school. If we hung around long enough, we would become bored & tired of one another and Sam would be truely ready for us to leave & that was just about the case! At 7:30AM we dropped by the dorm, said good-bye and headed out on our 10 hour return trip. It went ok w/us arriving home at 5PM to our remaining (& abandoned-for-4-days) children.

Later

Colorado 09

Wednesday the 22nd of July we left for a little break out in Colorado. The drive out was pretty normal except we got caught in a massive micro-burst storm in Goodland, which was kind of bizarre. We decided to bring Annie along for this trip- a first for her and this caused a couple extra stops along the way- but Alice's bladder was full each time anyway. Who would have guessed that Annie & Alice's bladder were comparable? We left JC at about 4PM so it was midnight when we got to the condo. We unloaded and naturally crashed.

Thursday; I thought, due to the late arrival that everyone would sleep in but was surprised when everyone was up around 9ish. I never sleep well the first night in the mountains but surprisingly I slept pretty well although it was hot in the room even with our window open. We headed out for a hike about 10:30 and hiked for about 1:30 hrs up the trailhead above our condo. Needless to say, none of us had yet adjusted to the altitude so I felt especially winded as we climbed up the mountain. I mentioned to Alice numerous times that I really didn’t want to have my heart attack on day 1. nor burn myself out going too long or hard the first day. At one point we climbed down this massive vertical face and all I could think about was climbing back up it on the way home. Alice commented that she should have brought cheese to go with our whining but finally relented and we turned around. The climb back up and out wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but I'm pretty sure I maxed out my pulse rate more than once. At one point Max took a break and sat on a log and apparently his cell phone fell out of his pocket. Luckily he realized it not too much later and was able to go back and find it. That would be his #2 lost phone in Colorado as he lost his phone while at a CO. church camp earlier in the summer. We all survived, cleaned up and went for lunch in Frisco at Alice’s new favorite Mexican place- Hacienda Real. We did some shopping on the way home and then vegged, swam, tennised, etc. back at the condo.

Friday our day began again with a 2 hour walk on a different trail up to a moutain Lilly Pond. I huffed and puffed as usual but other than the hard vertical climb at the beginning this trail was easier. Still manged to get the ole heart rate up there quite often & was breathing pretty hard.
Cleaned up and we headed over to Frisco to eat & rent bikes. Alice, Sam and Molly took off for Dillon- about a 6 mile ride and I hung with Max. Max has never really rode a bike- esp. for any distance so I was greatly concerned with how he would do. (Yes there is certainly some parental guilt here for the always-cheated 3rd born!) Despite a rough start with frequent stops and minor crashes, he did really well. The longer he went the more comfortable he got. We made multiple loops around Lake Dillon lakefront & it was pretty nice. Max thought that he deserved some treat after putting up with us biking so ice cream did the trick! Alice fixed dinner at the condo and we went down to the pool and watched a movie in PM.
Saturday we once again went for another hike on yet a different trail and although we intended to go for only a short walk, it didn’t quite work out that way. Every turn seemed to take us farther away from the condo. We finally figured out how to get back and 2 hours later made it. We intended to go "short" because we had to leave at 11AM to drive over to meet up with Alice's cousin- Lee in Nederland Co- near Boulder.

Our trip over to Nederland was fairly eventful because our IPhone directions wasn’t very accurate. We eventually made it there via Central City and Black Hawk and a very curvy Hwy 119. I can’t imagine traveling these roads in the wintertime with snow and ice -it was challeging enough on dry asphalt. Made it there and found Lee and had a nice balcony terrace lunch before Lee took us on the grandtour of the area. A massive storm hit us- including hail, heavy rain, etc. ut we managed to make it up to Gold Hill then down via the backroads to Boulder Canyon. It was well....interesting. We went through Ward CO., which is an abandoned mining town taken over by squatters. We stopped in another old mining town Gold Hill, which was the center of the 1859 gold rush. We stopped and went into the town’s general store, which looked like it had been there in 1859 and had ice cream and pie. It was a fun stop. Lee headed back to Boulder and we watched some mountain climbers in Boulder Canyon and stopped at some waterfalls before driving back to the condo.

The forecast we looked at before we headed out said that it would rain 5 of the 6 days we were going to be out there. Fortunately, rain the mountains is pretty spotty and up until this point, we had lucked out. Sunday however, it rained and rained and rained. We decided hiking would be miserable so went for brunch then shopping Nike, Coach, Timberland, Old Navy, Bass, Sports Authority, Adidas, Ralph Lauren, etc. Everyone got new tennis shoes and something else Max found a new favorite store- Zumiez, which had a lot of skater stuff (even though he really isn't a skater as such)

Monday we headed over to Breckenridge's Peak 8 amusement area where they have the alpine slides, bungee tramps, climbing walls, mazes, putt putt, etc. It's kinds of a ripoff, in my opinion, but the kids had fun so that's really all that matters. Alice had wanted to have a picnic all week (for some reason) so we stopped in Frisco by a lake for a picnic then back to the condo. It started raining as soon as we got back to the condo and continued on & off after that. Met up for dinner with the Schoenrocks from JC who were out at their place that weekend. We ate at an Italian restaurant in downtown Frisco Tuscato's. It was very good and we had a good time.

Tuesday, we left about 9:45CT and got home about 6PM. Nice, uneventful return trip home. Our 2005 Honda van did turn over 100,000 miles at Ks mile marker 44 on this trip. That averages about 22,222 mi's per year. Ouch! Alice wants the van to last a couple more years but not sure, at this pace, that it will.