Back to Champaign-Urbana

We spent the weekend at the University of Illinois with our good friends, John and Linda.  It was homecoming weekend and the Fighting Illini played our other Alma Mater, Wisconsin.  Fortunately for us, one of the schools we attended one and unfortunately, one lost.  In case you don't rabidly follow college football, the Badgers were the winning team.  On the fun side, we both made the Jumbotron during the third quarter Shout (the Illini's equivalent to the Badger's Jump around), we figured the camera person was amazed to old people like us to actually jump up and down, either that or they liked our matching sweatshirts.

We arrived in town Friday night just in time to enjoy some Papa Del's pizza - which we both realize we are little fanatical about.  But since we don't get that nuts about too many other things, might as well be pizza.  On Saturday, we had a great time walking around campus before the game; enjoying the views on the Quad, walking through the Union (where we first met each other), and reliving old memories (which are much better now since we have colored them with lots and lots of time).  We purchased a few Illini themed clothing items since we are working at having every piece of casual wear we own to have a college logo on it somewhere.  We also toured the Noyes Chemistry building (for those who aren't chemists in the know, we always pronounced it No-Yes Labs) and found the laboratory where I took introductory organic lab - the summary, it needs some serious renovations (it probably needed the same renovations when we were there because I don't remember it as being a cutting edge facility).  We also took the obligatory picture with Alma Mater which is still one of the coolest college statues around.

After the game we followed the Marching Illini (John and Linda's daughter is a proud member of the band's saxophone section) to the Education building for a post-game concert.  Just a side note for all those Illini graduates reading this, the Marching Illini are going to be in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade this year and have managed to get the coveted spot right in front of Santa - don't forget to set up your DVR's.  After the concert we headed out for a nice dinner and a little warmth since while the start of the game was comfortable we were all chilled by the end.

After brunch on Sunday we ordered our three party size Papa Del's pizzas to go (it is about 15-20 lbs of pizza) and headed home to stuff our freezer with a couple of months worth of pizza slices - yeah, we know it's nuts but we have fun doing it and we have great pizza until sometime around February.