College Visit Third Time Around

Day #12

We decided to try visiting a large state school this time around on our college visit tour.

McDaniel brought a friend from church who was curious about the school as well

and Ellie brought a friend so she’d have someone to hang out with that wasn’t her parents.

The school was two hours away.

About an hour into the drive and after LOTS of REALLY LOUD music played by the girls spanning the genres of rap, boy bands, to the soundtrack of Dream Girls,

Monte and I were in need of a break.

We pulled over to find a restroom and saw that we were at the same exact exit of our beloved railroad car diner!

We had decided earlier that we wanted to eat on campus so we didn’t stop at the diner again.

It was a beautiful football Saturday.

Our first brisk Fall day,

sweater weather at last, 

with a stunning blue sky.

It was homecoming for the university we were attending so we worried there would be big crowds.

We easily found a parking spot by the student union and found a food court inside with a Chick-fil-A (McDaniel was happy), a Panda Express and a Qdoba.

Monte and I talked with the girl taking our order and she mentioned this school was a big commuter school.

Hmmmmm…

The student union was beautiful.

We had a view of the football stadium and the soccer stadium which was pretty large as well.

We walked out onto campus to see the cheerleaders, some dancers and the marching band gathering.

We waited for awhile to see what was going to happen and then we realized nothing very soon so we walked around.

We found the fitness center.

It seemed brand new complete with a climbing wall, two pools, one with a lazy river and lots of mini courts for basketball and volleyball.

We walked around some dorm and apartment buildings that were stunning.

Right by the stadium we saw an ESPN truck.

This school is a Division 1 university so the game was going to be televised.

McDaniel was super excited about that!

We saw a huge inflated football helmet that lead to the entrance of a practice facility with all kinds of inflatables inside.

It was like a mini-combine with ladders to run, footballs to throw and photo ops.

Monte has been working out.

We should probably take a moment to talk about the the important factors of this school according to McDaniel.

The colors.

Blue and gold. 

Fine combination but tough in our neck of the woods 

since they represent Michigan which is a hated rival.

We also need to discuss the mascot.

Kangaroo.

His name is Zippy. Or Zip.

I noticed he had trouble running along the football field due to that long heavy tail.

There were t-shirts in the bookstore that said FEAR THE ROO.

McDaniel thinks it’s AWESOME.

We left the practice facility just in time to see the football players head to the stadium and the band enter the stadium.

It was so cool!

We had great seats and the team was good!

McDaniel was excited to see a student section where the kids stood the entire game and actually cheered with the cheerleaders.

After the first touchdown the cheerleaders shot a t-shirt cannon and Monte dove and caught it!

He fell on his back and sat with his eyes closed for a bit before celebrating that he had indeed caught the only t-shirt shot into the crowd at that time.

We celebrated right away hoping he wasn’t hurt 

but happy he got the t-shirt nonetheless.

We were surprised the stadium wasn’t full since it was homecoming which made Monte and I contemplate the girl back at Chick-fil-A’s comment about this school having a lot of commuters.

We realized on the way to the car that we hadn’t seen even half of the campus but we were so tired of walking by that point we decided we’d have to come back for an official visit.

It was around that time we noticed Monte was limping.

A price he was happy to pay for a free t-shirt.

Three schools down,

two on the “like” list.