One nice thing about having a daughter in a college sorority is getting invited to Moms Weekend. Ellie’s in Kappa at Purdue, and they planned theirs for a weekend in April. As soon as they picked a date I booked a room at the hotel in the Union, so I would be close, and scheduled the Friday off of work.
Unfortunately, work did not let go that easily, and I ended up having a lot of meetings that morning. I had hoped to get to campus mid-morning, but I ended up getting there closer to 1 pm. There was construction, and I got detoured away from the Union twice, but I finally arrived at the Union Club Hotel and left the van with a valet. Check in was smooth, and I was impressed with the renovations the hotel had made since the last time I’d stayed there. Everything was tastefully decorated in black & gold, but not in a college-y way. My room was nice, and soon Ellie showed up with Starbucks for both of us.
I unpacked quickly, and then we left for lunch at a Purdue staple, Triple XXX (pronounced “triple X”). Triple X is an old drive-in restaurant that has been there since 1929. I can’t imagine that anyone who’s ever been a student at Purdue has not eaten at Triple X. They have yummy greasy breakfast all day, and burgers and hot dogs and shakes, and none of it’s healthy but somehow it doesn’t matter. Ellie had breakfast, and I had the Drew Brees Special – two eggs, chicken fried steak, hash browns, and biscuits & gravy), which is a crazy amount of food, but I was really hungry. I didn’t finish it all.
By the time we were done eating the sorority house was open for us to pick up our Mom’s Weekend-themed sweatshirts. We walked across campus and got to pet goats on the way, because apparently it was Ag Week, and the ag school had animals on the green for people to interact with. We got our sweatshirts, and then Ellie gave me a tour of the house. I was especially interested in seeing the room she’s going to live in next year. The house is beautiful and reminds me of some places we saw in Paris.
After Kappa we went back to the hotel, relaxed, watched Sleepless in Seattle, and got ready for dinner. Ellie had made reservations at a local restaurant for us, four of her friends, and the friends’ moms. Unfortunately, one mom-daughter duo wasn’t able to make it, but we had a good meal and then stood outside talking for at least a half hour.
After dinner we split up, and Ellie’s and I made a run to Meijer. Back at the hotel, we settled in for the evening in cozy pajamas. Even though her dorm was a few blocks away, she spent the weekend in my room. We finished Sleepless in Seattle and then watched The Blind Side. We were up very late for me, but it was fun just hanging out.
Saturday morning I woke up early without an alarm, around 7 am. I did some things on my iPad until Ellie woke up, and then we got ready. We left the hotel room around 9:15 am, but we couldn’t have brunch at the house until around 11 am, so Ellie and I decided to take a walk. We ended up walking most of campus! We went around the football stadium, up to the Acres (where a lot of sorority and fraternity houses, but not Ellie’s house, are), and back down to the main campus area. We even stopped by Andrew’s old on-campus apartment. When we go to the vicinity of Kappa we still had some time to kill, so we grabbed iced coffees nearby to kill time. I already had 10,000 steps!
Brunch was really, really good. They had an omelet station and so many yummy baked goods, fresh fruit, juices, etc. It was pretty crowded in the dining room, but everyone was in good spirits and showed patience. They had decorated the tables with pictures of the girls with their moms, when all of us were younger. It was fun to check out everyone’s kid pictures. Outside, the girls took about a million pictures, including some with the moms.
After lunch we went back to the hotel to freshen up a bit, then we got the car and went to downtown Lafayette for a private shopping experience at a boutique there. They had some nice things, and we bought a few items. Then we went back to the hotel to rest a little before going to some parties. A lot of fraternities and sororities were having their moms weekends that weekend, and so there was a lot going on.
By the end of the day, we’d stopped at five parties and completed over 30,000 steps! Some of the parties were not great, but the fraternities were playing eighties music for the moms, and we sang and danced along with the girls and generally forgot that we were too old for college parties. I was generally impressed by the safety measures the Greek system had put in place since I’d been a college student. Each official party had a couple dozen “sobers,” people whose job it was to keep an eye on things. Some checked IDs as people arrived, some manned the bar – where they served only canned beverages and opened them in front of the person who would be drinking them – some prevented people from wandering into other areas of the house, and some drove people back and forth. After attending a couple parties, I decided I could worry (slightly) less about her safety.
We also pre-gamed, twice, in her friends’ moms’ hotel room. There was a lot of makeup and changing of clothes and singing. Their room was off of the main campus and downhill, and once we drove there but once we walked there, which meant the walk back was uphill.
As the evening wound down, her friends with their moms peeled off one-by-one. Eventually, it was just Ellie, one friend, the friend’s mom, and me, and the girls wanted Jimmy John’s. I did not want to walk far, and I’d had enough alcohol that I wasn’t going to drive anywhere, but Ellie assured me that the Jimmy John’s was really close to the hotel. And it was, but it unfortunately closed early that evening for no apparent reason. So then someone mentioned Mexican food, which was back down the hill into the river valley. I agreed to walk there but we planned to Uber back.
We got to the restaurant a little before midnight and asked for a table outside. But then before we were even greeted someone saw lightning, so we asked to move inside. It’s a good thing we did, because by the time we finished eating it was storming with fierce rain. The Uber back doubled in price as soon as the rain started, but it was money well spent! We rode back to the hotel and immediately got ready for bed. It was after midnight, so I checked my step total for the previous day and was astounded. We’d done more steps than even a Disney day!
On Sunday Ellie and I were exhausted and didn’t feel like doing anything. Kappa was having donuts and bible study, but we didn’t even feel like walking across campus, so we grabbed breakfast at the hotel restaurant. Pretty much every table was full of students with their moms. After breakfast Ellie needed to study, so I took her back to her dorm and headed home. It was a really fun weekend, but I wouldn’t want to do it every week!
