Road Trip: Day 3 (continued)

Visited my college campus...Drake University. It was orientation day and the campus was also getting ready to host the National Outdoor Track & Field Championships the following weekend (won by both men's and women's teams from Texas A&M by the way). Lots of changes had been made since I was a student ... a new housing development called the West Village. New restaurants. Redirected roads. Painted bulldogs all over campus.



But there were lots of gems that have remained the same...

Lower left window...The Social Room. Oh Yeah. You know you miss it. This is where I met BFFs Connie Kubicek and Lil' Lori "Lord" Held for the first time.



Morehouse, the other residence hall where Connie and I lived for three years. (Third floor, five windows left of the chimney.)



One of the best traditions at Drake is the Painted Street. It runs through the center of campus and every Drake Relays (April) is it whitewashed and 58 campus organizations gather to paint representative squares based on that year's Relays theme. This year, the theme was "Come for the Races, Stay for the ..." Delta Sigma Pi, my business fraternity, painted this square. Looks like they could have used a dual art/business major to help them out this year. Some squares are so elaborate or clever. I wish I would have taken more pictures of it. The event is so popular, now there is a downtown street painting event where businesses can participate.



Kragie/Newell, my first workplace in the advertising world. Housed in the Butler Mansion, the history of this building is so interesting, I used to give tours to business students, architecture students and any other visitors that came to the agency (in addition to my actual job). Despite the many additions on the back side of the house, I hope they are still giving tours using the script I painstakingly researched and wrote back in the early 90s. This building is also where I met Andy Chenchar, an art director, who happened to be roommates with a guy a named Mark Nault.



After driving around the city all morning, we headed over to the park across from Andy's current house. The park had a great splash pool for little kids and two nice playgrounds for the kids to play on.





We went back to Joe and Ellie's for the barbecue later that afternoon. The neighbors had loaned us a really fun game called Ladder Golf. Totally need to order this for the backyard. The kids loved it!



We saw so many good, old friends ... Greg, Jarred, Jon and Heidi and their son Owen; Molly and her daughter Sofia; Joe's brother Jon, his wife, Dawn and son Jack; and Andy, his wife, Melissa, and their incredibly entertaining son Max. Max and Sarah became fast friends. Max is infatuated with Lady Gaga and likes to give impromptu concerts. Sarah became his wardrobe manager: "Help me put on my fish dress" and "You forgot my shoes" and his announcer: "Introducing Lady Gaga!". Sometimes Sofia was a backup dancer and sometimes Ethan did lighting with a flashlight. He would sing "Walk, walk, fashion baby, work it, I'm so crazy" and morph into Shirley Manson from Garbage and sing "Pour your misery down!" IT WAS AWESOME! Totally crazy but you can tell this kid is talented, even though he's only four. I told Andy I look forward to saying "I knew him when..."