College Trip - Day 7 - Burnt Umber

Our hotel in Syracuse had a cool "waterfall" style shower head.  

Syracuse one upped the other schools by giving us 2 guides for the tour.

Jim keeping an eye on the Turk's Cubs.

The castle.

The Adams Family house.

Scary Ivy growing on all the buildings.  Lots of "googlie eyes" required.

Probably for the vine encased buildings also.

One of our guides for the Syracuse Tour - Terry.  He may be competing in the 110m hurdles at Beijing.

And the obligatory perky beautiful guide, Megan.

We were running late and Jim didn't have enough money for 3 hours, so our parking cost us $25 instead of $4.

One benefit 2 teenage boys driving.  Mom and Dad get to hang out in the back seat together!!

Syracuse University.  Basketball crazy school (SYR dominates Lacrosse, multiple-time and current NCAA national champion.)

Today we had the privilege of 2 tour guides, Megan and Terry (no not the Turk.)  Those of you who know our Terri know how she adores celebrities and heroes.  We found out that our guide Terri is a 100m sprinter at Syracuse and is 0.27 sec away from selection to the U.S. Olympic team.  Well, when our Terri heard that, you know the next words out of her mouth "We're DEFINITELY, getting our picture taken with him."   All of a sudden the female guide was chopped liver, I guess.

Those of you who know the Slausons, will find this next anecdote amazing.   Today was the _first_ time we were late for one of the tours.  I won't go into the details, which include sleeping late, long showers, blow drying hair, and Jim's sense of direction.  Anyways, we got to the tour 10 minutes late.

That did not deter the Turk.  She took off in full sprint with her men and boys barely hanging on and wit in 3 minutes we had crossed the gap and integrated the tour in progress.  Jim later told Terri the guide that the Turk wanted to race him.  I think he actually paused a second and looked at her legs before smiling...

During each tour so far there is always  discussion of some sort of student activism, an important part of the young adult's development.  In the spirit of his alma mater's Miami Redskins now being the Miami "Redhawks," Jim suggested an idea for Will and JW if they came to Syracuse.   They could rally up support and change the "Orangemen" to "Burnt Umbermen." This came from the recent SNL with Christopher Walken.  During his monologue he fielded questions, one of which was "what is your favorite color?"  After chastizing the questioner for a poor use of valuable questioning opportunity, he responded with "Burnt Umber."  Don't know what color Umber is but it sounds "orangey," and certainly must be more politically correct than Orange...

Off to our final destination, Dover, NH to day with Opa and Peg for a few days and see UNH tomorrow.  In car entertainment today - Richard Strauss (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1896) — the opening section of which is well known today for its use in Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey,)  Sexy Beast (with Ben Kingsley,) and Will's eclectic music while he drove.  No speeding ticket (just one parking ticket) today.

Thanx for reading.