Parents Weekend - Year 2 (LONG!)

After the upheaval of the last couple of weeks here in the Den, I was actually looking forward to getting on a plane yesterday to see Our Lady of BYU for this year's Parents Weekend festivities. This is the second year of our participation.

Flight out was good although I think Mother United is changing their boarding policies without telling anyone. My boarding pass said boarding was at 10:02AM for a 10:22 AM departure, so I left the filthiest Red Carpet Club on the planet (the one on the appropriately named "F" Concourse at ORD) at 10:00AM and I got to the gate about three minutes later. The agent said, "Are you going to Salt Lake?" and I said yes and urged me to get on like it was the last flight out of Saigon. I get on the plane and it is full. Here's the rub though - we didn't close the door until about 10:20AM. I have no idea what the spasm was about...anyway, we left on time and landed in SLC 30 minutes early.

I stopped to see a good friend on my way down to Provo and it was great to connect with him. We laughed a lot and even engaged in a little bit of conversational lecture, well, I did.

After I checked into the hotel, I called Our Lady of BYU and she invited me over to her "ghetto" apartment. Clearly, she's never been to a real ghetto. I will say this though...the carpet stains which are probably 20 years old give her place a crime scene investigation feel. So after the brief tour of her palace, we went up to campus to pay homage to the Wilk. I was reminded that the condo I lived in when I was there is in fact a total hole now. Seriously. After the homage tour on campus, we got her some groceries and then got together with her friends for dinner.

We went to an earnest little place in Provo called Guru's Cafe. It wasn't bad for a Provo restaurant that espouses a philosophy. You can tell that because of its decor, right down to the Buddha head. Nice touch. It's an eclectic menu with an odd ordering concept. You line up and order off the menu to one totally overwhelmed cashier. This is highly problematic on a busy Friday night. Highly. It didn't seem to bug the kids, but it did me.

That being said, dinner was great. We kicked it off with sweet potato fries. These were a gift from the heavens:

I had the shrimp tacos and for being in land-locked Utah, they made a mighty good shrimp taco:
The mango salsa rocked

Dinner was fun listening to Our Lady and her friends go on about college life. Lots of boy drama. Texting has changed the dating scene, I certainly learned that last night. It was a good time.

This morning kicked off with the Parents/Alumni 5K. I was nervous about this as I have not run at all this week and this is at a much higher altitude than the plains of Illinois that we call home. Couple of things in my favor this year - it was much, much warmer for one and I felt like I had eaten right in advance. The race started late, of course. Nothing like Mormon Standard Time. The course was lined again with the international students, mostly from Asia. They were good cheerleaders but I'm sure they thought we were all maniacs. Here's what was doing before the race:

Me and Our Lady
Looking like a complete spastic as I approach the finish line

This was a good race. I finished 89th overall and bested last year's time by about two minutes. It was all good. We got breakfast afterward at Jamba Juice and I am totally on board with their oatmeal, even though it's made with spew, I mean, soy milk. I recommend it!

And now we've got the game this afternoon. Man, the winning Cougars better show up. We CANNOT have a repeat of last week's debacle. At least, I get to enjoy the game with Our Lady. Of course, I'll be in the student section with her and will be the oldest one by about twenty years. Pathetic.