Labor Day weekend means many things - the end of summer, the beginning of fall, but it also means the start of college football! Bryan & I always try to go to UT's opening game because Labor Day is usually a slow weekend for us since soccer starts the 2nd weekend in September. Usually opening day is at home but this year, UT played Maryland so we thought it was the perfect weekend get away for the 2 of us. We flew up Friday afternoon & enjoyed a wonderful meal at Joe's Stone Crab that evening:
It was traditional steak/seafood house in an old bank. Really cool building with a lot of history. Bryan has eaten here before & was excited to take me. Afterwards, we walked by the white house on our way home. Since we stayed in the city, we had planned on walking everywhere but we noticed when we left the restaurant everything was wet. Apparently it had stormed while we were at dinner & even though it was only sprinkling while we were walking, there was an awesome lightening show & we got the best picture of the white house that night while the sky lit up:
Isn't that an awesome picture?! I would have loved to have walked around some more but we ended up calling a ride & thank goodness we did because it started storming again.
The next morning we got up & ready for the game. It was a 30 minute ride to the stadium in Landover, Maryland, but instead of playing on campus, they played at Fed Ex Field, home of the Washington Redskins:
When we got there the weather was perfect. Mid Eighties & sunny:
As soon as the 4th quarter started, the game got postponed due to weather. It hadn't started raining yet but there were severe storms in the area with lightening. Eventually the rain came & we had a fun 1 1/2 hour delay. The good news is that we were at a professional stadium so there was plenty of space for everyone inside with bars/restaurants, etc:
I found a Johnny Rockets & got a milkshake - it was awesome! Then out of no where, the sun came out & the game started again. Of course we ended up losing, surprise surprise, but look what we saw from the stadium:
A huge, beautiful rainbow! Of course the picture does not do it justice. Afterwards, we took a car back to the city & somehow discovered RPM Italian was right by our hotel - how did we not know this? We were literally here at this same hotel earlier this year:
We ate at RPM Steakhouse in Chicago but have never been able to get into RPM Italian. It books up weeks in advance. Of course the dining room was full but they were able to squeeze us into the bar & it was totally worth it. This was my favorite meal of the weekend & we will totally be back! Our favorite was dessert flambéed tableside:
It was basically a sea salt caramel cake with vanilla gelato (basically an ice cream cake) topped with hot chocolate. AMAZING!
When we were walking out, we saw some other Texas fans & of course Bryan made friends with this guy:
He just had to try on his fedora :) I will say, that we are 0-4 on the road the past couple of years for our out of town roadtrips (Cal, USC, Notre Dame & now Maryland) but we still have fun going. Number one we love an excuse to have a weekend away without the girls. But also, Texas fans travel. Half of our airplane is wearing burnt orange & literally even when we go to dinner or walk around our hotel, everyone is there for the game. It's amazing how many friends you make as soon as you realize someone else is from Texas. Hopefully this was a practice game & the Horns will show up ready to play next week!
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