I recently took my daughter on her first college visit. We drove down to Lawrence, Kansas, to attend a junior day at the University of Kansas. I'd never been to Lawrence, so I definitely didn't know anything about the town or its beautiful college campus prior to our visit.
One of the very first things I learned was that they are the Jayhawks, and they are quite enthusiastic about their school chant of "Rock Chalk, Jayhawk." I'm not a sport's person at all, and neither is my daughter, so we were the only two in the crowd of about a thousand parents and teenagers who didn't know what to say when the vice-president of the university came on stage and yelled "Rock Chalk" at us! Oh well, I'm not looking for a place to send my daughter based on their sport's cheer.
Frankly, we were visiting KU because my daughter wants to be a paleontologist someday, so we went there to scope it out as a potential grad school for her. Since we don't live in Kansas, I can't really afford the out-of-state tuition for her to attend that university as an undergraduate student, but after seeing the campus, I'd consider it as a possibility now if she wants to go there. She's smart, so she could probably get enough scholarship money to pay for most of it, but for now, we'll just save it as a potential college for her to earn the master's degree she'll need to be a full-fledged paleontologist.
Prior to visiting Lawrence, I'd done a little research about the town and learned it is one of the top college towns in the country and that it has one of the nicest down towns of about any city in the U.S. Upon our arrival in Lawrence, my daughter steered me down Massachusetts Street as we attempted to find the hotel I'd booked for the night. Turns out that street is the main street of Lawrence!
Wow, what a street! The locals just call it Mass Street. It contains block after block of lovely shops, restaurants and cultural places like theaters and music bars. I was blown away. After we checked into the Oread Hotel and were equally blown away by that structure, we walked down one of the steep hills surrounding the campus (Hills! In Kansa! Who knew!?) and headed to Mass Street to check out a used bookstore I'd seen in passing and to find a place to eat.
This is a beautiful hotel!
This is a beautiful hotel!
At La Parrilla, a Mexican restaurant and bar, we had some really delicious fajitas, a favorite of both of us. These were spicier than most Mexican restaurants make them, but I love spicy food!
The next morning, we arose early to attend the junior day activities. We lucked out as the weather was gorgeous, sunny and warm, even though it was early in March still. We enjoyed the entire visit, and we were impressed with what we saw, but I would say they put more emphasis on the sports one can watch there than the academics. In fact, our group's first stop was the apparently famous basketball arena of KU -- again, I don't follow or care about sports, but my son does, so I did take a few photos while we were inside the arena, and I was interested to learn that the man who invented the game of basketball was the first basketball coach at KU.
That apparently is the original center court of the basketball arena.
Overall, I enjoyed the junior day at KU, and I would especially like to return to Lawrence, Kansas, someday to spend a full day on Massachusetts Street checking out The Dusty Bookshelf further along with the other bookstores I saw there and the eclectic shops and diners.
Here are a couple more photos of the campus taken hurriedly while trying to keep up with our group which was being led by a very energetic college junior named Eva. She said that the campus buses go everywhere, even in town, and are free to college students, and we learned that the man who first discovered Pluto and the guy who created Google Earth were both KU students. Also, one of my favorite actors, Paul Rudd, was a student there, along with many other people who went on to do great things with their lives.
I'm leaving the final photo large because I like and totally agree with the saying engraved into the top of the building's entrance. "Rock Chalk, Jayhawk!"
