Last weekend we made our annual trip down to Manhattan for a K-State football game -- K-State vs UMass.
(Yea, only annual now -- used to be about every weekend in the fall!)
My amazingly talented sister-in-law transformed some purple TOMS in to the most awesome K-state shoes known to man, and this was my first chance to wear them! Pretty sure they're the coolest K-State apparel I own -- and I own a lot of it, so that's saying something! ;)
I also bought purple stone-washed stretch jeans at Wal-Mart for the occasion. I had to -- they matched the shoes almost perfect! It turned out to be a little too warm for jeans that day, so they got returned. Sad.
Matt's roommate and his girlfriend made the 2 hour trip to Manhattan with us. Spenser grew up in Kansas City and had NEVER been to Manhattan. He didn't even really know where it was. Typical KU fan, haha. ;) Ashley, however, grew up in Manhattan, so she was happy to go back for a day!
First stop: Aggieville. I always get so excited when I walk down the main street and see the big purple Wildcat on the roof of Varney's. Just love it. :)
Just like the game we went to last year, this Saturday happened to be High School Band Day. High Schools from all over the state brought their band to the game, and they had a parade through Aggieville before hand.
K-State's band
Great Bend High School (where I'm from) rocking some awesome hats
There was a new Mexican place, Taco Lucha, we wanted to try (well, new to us...turns out it had been open for over a year...) so we went and put our name on the list. There's a wait everywhere on game day. We gave Spen the tour of Aggieville, stopped in a few shops / bars, and enjoyed the parade of bands as we waited. (One school had 7 members in their band. Seriously.)
We finally got a seat at a little table outside (such a cute restaurant, btw) and quickly ordered some cheese dip for an appetizer. We were all ravenous by that point.
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| It didn't last long. At all. |
We also ordered an absurd amount of tacos. Our eyes were definitely bigger than our stomachs. And everyone except me got a drink. Apparently a very strong drink, because they were all half-drunk by the time we left the place!
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| Too. Much. Food. |
I was dying for some Call Hall Ice Cream -- the best ice cream ever, if you ask me -- so after a quick tour of campus (kind of), we stopped there. Of course the line was seriously all the way through the building. Ugh. We didn't have time to wait on that. With two people working, it would have been 45 minutes at least. So disappointed!
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| Call Hall. Where the magic happens. |
The only way we could convince Spenser to come to Manhattan for the day was if we promised to take him to Tall Grass Brewery, where they were having their "world release" of their new monkey zombie beer. Monkey Zombie? Seriously? Ugh. Pretty much my worse nightmare. Beer and zombies. Bleh.
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| The boys were so excited for their monkey/zombie beer glasses! |
Not only were their annoyingly drunk zombies everywhere, but the brewery was super hot, smelled like beer (shocking, I know, but I hate that smell) and there were flies everywhere. I stood patiently and pretended to enjoy myself for about an hour, when thankfully, they were ready to go!
This was the dark section with experimental beers. Ridiculous.
The only good thing that happened there was that some lady offered my $100 for my awesome kicks. Didn't happen. I wouldn't sell them for $1,000! (Well...maybe I would for that much.) ;)
So now the boys were drunk AND tired, so we went back to Aggieville for some coffee to wake them up. Matt actually fell asleep (passed out?) in the front seat on the 10 minute drive. So I smacked him and he jumped at least three feet, hahaha. Hilarious. (He didn't think so!)
Before coffee, we stopped in a little Acme gift store to browse. We heard the boys just dying laughing. I mean, uncontrollably laughing so hard they were crying. Both of them. We were dying to know what was so hilarious...
...and then they showed us THIS. A freaking FART book. Ugh. Boys. They never grow up.
Farts around the world. For real??
After coffee and snacks from Bluestem Bistro to perk us up, we set out for the stadium to find my friend at her tailgate. They had quite the set up in a perfect spot, so we hung out there for a little bit and helped ourselves to some free food!
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Kathy and I at her tailgate
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I was getting pretty antsy to get in to the game and see the new stadium additions. I like the pre-game stuff better than the actual game itself!
The new West Gate - which looks like a castle - and the view of it from the other side
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| I love Bill Snyder Family Stadium! |
We got our tickets from a co-worker of ours, and they were pretty good seats! Can't complain since we got four seats together to a sold out game the week before!
The view from our seats.
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| Instagram makes all pictures look better! |
The game wasn't very exciting. Especially since I was the only one who really even cared about it! K-State looked a little rough. Nothing like last year. So we ended up leaving at half-time...and I was okay with that. (And they ended up winning!)
We went back down to Aggieville - beat the rush - and got right in the door at my favorite spot, So Long Saloon. Two raspberry black bean cheese dips were consumed in about 5 minutes. Yum. Matt and I split a burger, too. Poor Matt. This was his 3rd trip to Manhattan...and his 3rd time eating at So Long Saloon. He probably thinks that's the only place that serves food in Aggieville! ;)
Dessert was up next ... and donuts were the winner! Varsity Donuts was completely empty, so we took over the place. I made Matt serenade us on the piano, while Ashley and Spen enjoyed their donuts.
We noticed they had a couple of shelves of board and card games, so we got out, "Would You Rather...?" and had a grand old time, haha. Most of the questions were so absurd they had us all laughing too hard.
So much for partying it up in Aggieville after the game -- which was our originaly plan. We're getting too old for that. We were all worn out and tired by 10pm, so we hit the road. And since everyone else had drank, I got drive. (Even though I was the only one who got up at 6am and ran 14 miles. Obviosyly still a little bitter about that.) ;)
Besides the long drive home where I was fighting to keep my eyes open, it really was a fun day. Any day in Manhattan -- especially one that includes a K-State football game -- is automatically pretty awesome in my book. :)
