On Saturday October 29th, we woke up at Jackie's in Morris and headed out for U of I at 7am. A solid 4 hours of sleep was going to be promising for a day full of drinking, eating, and having fun! We got to U of I just after 10am and I dropped Rachel off at Kam's, drove our car to the classiest of housing, Days Inn, and then took an Uber to Kam's to start the day off. Most of our friends had gotten there the night before so everyone was there when I arrived, Torie, Tim, Mary, Jeff, Aly, Matt, Caitlin, Ashley, Corey, Michelle, Jordan, Matt, and other friends! Here is a quick summary, the video does the days events more justice for the most part.
We had Blue Guys and beers before heading over to the Stadium Inn at noon to join the Mug Club for our second time! First time for Rachel as a Maluta. Chug! By then we were feeling pretty hungry for lunch so we went to Firehaus to get burgers at 1pm. After lunch Torie gave Tim, Rachel, Caitlin, and I a tour of the campus. Tour guide Torie lead us to Brothers, the Alma Mater, the quad, AOII sorority house, and more telling "old" college stories along the way. The tour ended at Red Lion where we met up with the rest of our group and Rachel showed off her amazing dance moves on stage with some Chewbaccas. The dancing ended around 4:30p and everyone headed back to our Days Inn where everyone took a nap.
I wasn't tired and neither was Jordan so we walked over to Hunter's Haven. We were walking through their shop which consisted mostly of model cars/planes and things like that. Finally we found the shooting range in the back and Jordan convinced an employee to let us shoot some arrows. The place was closing in about 15 minutes so we got to shoot for free. We first used these green plastic bows which were alright and I managed to shoot down range, but very hard to use since there was nothing to balance the arrow on. Then Jordan said we needed something better so came back with a compound bow that was super hard to pull back. I pulled it back, locked my elbow out and bam, the string from the bow ripped across my forearm and left a huge red mark that eventually turned into a pretty brutal bruise. It kinda burned but actually wasn't as painful as it looked. I think for my first time shooting a bow I was doing great... Finally the owner came out. It was probably 5:15 by now, and he brought his compound bow out. This one was lighter and easier to pull back. That's what I am talking about. I managed to shoot this one down range without slamming my arm (don't lock your elbow friends! Keep a little bend in it) and actually hit the target. Woo! Mark then showed us how it was done and hit a bullseye. We finally left Hunters Haven probably around 5:30p and were the only ones there with Mark the owner, who was a nice guy, but definitely going to vote Trump if you know what I mean.
We walked back over to the Days Inn and grabbed a few brews and sat on a table in the courtyard talking hunting and other random stuff. Then a door behind us opened and a guy who looked like a crackhead came out smiling. His teeth were all yellow, spaced apart, decaying and kinda nasty, like a crackhead. He creepily asked for a cigarette from Jordan and he gave him one. Then he looked at me and said nice beer (budwesier), I said thanks and then regretfully shook his hand when he offered it out for a handshake. Ugh. Before he went back into his room for good, he grabbed a similar bud from his room and raised it up as if we were now buddys. Yikes. He had a rather large friend sitting on a bed with him in the room. These are definitley people who live at the Days Inn. Also since it was homecoming, this Days Inn which usually runs for $49 a night cost us $180. Inflation Nation.
Around 7pm we woke everyone up and walked over to Dos Reales Mexican for dinner. I had a delicious burrito and Rachel and I shared a giant Coronarita. For some reason Rach's skin broke out which was kinda weird, but no harm done. We then jumped in an uber and headed back to the campus to hit up the bars. We start at Legends where we have some drinks, and watched a bit of baseball. It was pretty crowded.
We went to our favorite bar, Brothers, around 9:30p. The Cubs lost game 4 while we were there. After brothers we went to Cly's for some dancing and then tried to go to Joe's. The line at Joe's was extremely long and after waiting for 20 minutes, Rachel and I decided to head somewhere a little bit chiller. We walked over to Murphy's and ended the night talking to students Harold and Kumar to close the night out. It was Halloween weekend after all. We ubered it back to Days Inn at 2:15am where we crashed on a blow up mattress. College.
Happy 5 Year Dating Anniversary to Rachel and I! Our first ever time hanging out was actually on Halloween weekend of 2011 at Champaign. It was amazing and visiting U of I brought back so many great memories. Much love Rachie! Here a few pictures from our first Date together!
The next morning Sunday October 30th we woke up around 8:30a. As we got McDonald's breakfast, we saw that crackhead from the Days Inn picking up cigarette butts off the ground. Crackhead confirmed. The drive home somehow only took 2 hours and we got Jimmy Johns for lunch then took a 3 hour nap. We woke up, did some things around the apartment, and had Papa John's for dinner. I watched the Walking Dead and the Cubs won game 5 at Wrigley. Still Down 3-2 in the series though.
Being a college student is exhausting, but homecoming alumni weekend was a blast!
Josh
