100 years of Mizzou Homecoming

Last weekend I went back to Missouri for Mizzou's 100th homecoming.  It was my first homecoming (and first home football game) since I graduated over 6 (!) years ago.  I took a ton of pictures on my camera, but I think my camera cord is in some box back in NYC.  So here is homecoming through cell phone photos.

My friend Kendra picked me up early in Kansas City (after an even earlier start in DC and some Dukes of Hazzard like driving by my cousin) and we headed to my sister's house to pick up my other sister and watch my niece Gretchen walk.  I was last home in mid September and she wasn't yet walking.  Now she can walk all over the place.

After we were satisfied from baby watching we headed on to Shakespeare's Pizza for some lunchtime slices.  My pepperoni slice was amazing.  

Pizza!

We walked all around downtown looking for new homecoming apparel, but ended up at the bookstore.  Luckily it was 25% off Friday before game day (I actually think they have a much better/clever name for this sale).  We each bought a few things.  I personally needed some stylish mizzou wear for football watch parties.

So the year after I moved out of the dorms MU built luxury suite dorm apartments.  Then right after I graduated they finished the better than Equinox recreational facility.  And just this year they opened up the new student union.  Uh so fancy.  Kids these days.  The renovation was complete with a recreation of The Shack, a close to campus hangout that burned down in the 80's.  Apparently the shack was covered in carvings, so the union had walls where the students (and alumni I hope) could add their scratch.

I couldn't resist 

Chester Brewer invented homecoming.  In honor of this he (posthumously) and his family were honored as grand marshals and the put up this cardboard statue of him.  

Will they make this permanent? 

We walked back downtown for a bit (might of stopped by Harpos) before running some errands to get ready for Saturday's tailgating.  

I convinced everyone that we had to stop by house decorations.  House Decs for those of you not in the know are these little plays the sororities and fraternities put on in Greek town.  The stages and characters are elaborately "pomped" with tissue paper, which the freshmen pledges start on the first week of school.  For as much time they put into the stage I always wonder why they don't put more time into the script...  We watched two and I got a huge bag of kettle corn for $5 (amazing).

Truman had to chase a Toucan to get the homecoming torch back?

We headed back downtown after a quick picture at the tiger fountain for some dancing.  

The next morning came quick as we had to make the parade's 8:30 am start.  The parade was full of marching bands and greek floats.  It was pretty good overall.  

We then walked to parking lot C to commence tailgating.  The game was set for 1pm even though it wasn't picked up for TV (why oh why?) so we only had two hours.  When I went to buy our game tickets, the only section showing three together was the end zone bleachers.  Although we didn't have much depth perception on what was going on the other side of the field, they turned out to be pretty cool seats.  We were one row up and right in the action (when they were on our side of the field). 

Beautiful clear October day = sunburn

We did a little post game tailgating but then crashed.  Luckily that meant we could get up early and get to Flatbranch for lunch before anyone else did.  A few other people had the same idea, but we got in and got a seat right away.  After delicious Missouri BBQ Chicken Pizza (thank you Flatbranch for never changing your menu) we did a quick campus walk around before heading back to KC.

Flowers, the Columns, Jesse Hall... beauty

Back to my sister's to drop my sister off and watch Gretchen walk some more (and to Congratulate Kristen on a wicked fast 3:40 something marathon!!) then back to the airport and back to DC.