Texas Tech University

Today was the first day of our 2 week Great American Road Trip to the Wild West!  We will be on the move almost every day, staying at 10 different places in 13 nights.  Here is map of our entire trip:

We started out at 5:30AM with our guns up and our sights set on Lubbock.  Once we reached Fort Worth, the kids were the furthest west they have ever been.  That will continue to be true every day for the next 9 days.

Since they've never traveled west of Ft. Worth, there were a lot of new sights to see on our way to West Texas.  The most impressive was probably the wind farms.  I remember windmills on this road from my college days, but there are so many more now.  They were everywhere!  Some were pretty close to the road so we really got to see just how huge they are.  Other notable sights were plateaus, red dirt, oil drills, and cacti. 

We arrived in Lubbock in time for lunch and ate at Spanky's.  Morgan even signed her name on the table.  She'll do well in college.

After we had eaten, we headed across the street to check out the campus.  Morgan was skeptical about my claims of Texas Tech being huge.  She insisted that it could not be larger than Hogwarts.  We drove around the perimeter of the main part of campus before parking and walking around.  She was amazed and she admitted that it is, in fact, larger than Hogwarts.

I haven't been to Lubbock in 13 years and a lot has changed.  Like the football stadium.  Wow.  We need to come back for a game.  Some things were just as I remembered, like Memorial Circle.  We walked around and forced the kids to take pictures in front of all the important stuff.  They were pretty good sports, but Morgan said it was annoying that we kept talking about stuff that happened before she existed. 

Next we headed to the Student Union and then the library.  Many of the buildings were closed since it is summer and a Saturday, but I knew the library would be open.  The first floor is just the atrium and a lot of computers and study areas.  Morgan was not impressed and she said that her school library had more books than this.  So we took them upstairs to the stacks.  She was in awe.  And that was just one floor.  Both kids were extremely quiet in the library.  I didn't know this level of quiet was possible from them. 

One of the places we had to visit on campus was the Kent R. Hance Chapel, named for Rodney's first cousin once removed.  He was Chancellor from 2006-2014.  Rodney was able to come to Lubbock during his time as Chancellor and visited him in his office, but I missed it completely.  The chapel is beautiful and was set up for a wedding later that afternoon.

There was a really cool statue of a giant ring outside the Alumni Center.  Rodney posed with his life size class ring.

All this walking in the heat wore the kids out so Rodney walked back to get the car and pick us up.  Caleb relaxed in the shad while he waited. 

We really wanted to go inside a dorm and a classroom building so we headed to my former home, Stangel/Murdough.  The building was open, but you can't get into the dormitory halls without an ID.  We showed the kids the dining hall and the laundry room and looked down the hallway through the door.  I think the hallway carpet was the same.  Ewww. 

We couldn't find a classroom building open so we took the kids for shaved ice.  The original Bahama Buck's is closed now.  It was just a glorified shed with a walk-up order window and it was the best.  We settled for the indoor air-conditioned version that has replaced it and I am happy to say that at least one of the employees still knew how to hustle.  They are so slow at the locations in Dallas.  Drives me crazy. 

Next we went to the hotel to swim.  The kids are so excited that there is a pool at almost every place we will be staying.  Swimming every day!  It's their dream come true.  They had a blast and we are so happy to have kids that are now tall enough to touch at least somewhere in the pool and can swim on their own.  We can even sit outside and watch if we want and don't have to drag tons of pool toys and inflatable things to keep them entertained and afloat.  Swimsuits and goggles and water and they are good to go. 

We ended the night with dinner at The Shack BBQ, recommended by our Longhorn friends who visited Texas Tech with their high school son.  They were out of every meat except chicken, but we stayed anyway and it was delicious.  Thanks for the rec, Stacy!  The banana pudding was a hit as well. 

We drove around town a little more reminiscing on our way back to the hotel and then watched a movie on TV before bed.  Morgan was so excited about the trip last night that she only slept 4 hours.  She was ready for bed tonight!  Our trip is off to a great start!