Basketball Road Trip to Ames 2015

My mom and I have been planning a road trip to Ames for a while.  My cousin (1st once removed as this chart taught me) play basketball for the Oklahoma State Cowgirls!  Prior to heading out on Saturday morning, I decided to make a shirt quick for the game. Yay for my silhouette and having orange heat transfer vinyl on hand!  I think it turned out pretty good.

 My mom and I headed out just after 10am.

 We stopped at the Top of Iowa welcome center just across the border.  It was a great big barn and it had all sorts of cow themed stuff inside!

I need to get these chairs!

 Ames has a cute little Main Street with a bunch of shops and eateries.  We walked around and did some shopping to burn a couple hours.  My mom even found a great deal at one of the antique stores.

 I grabbed a couple of cupcakes at Cupcake Emporium as well.  They appeared on Cupcake Wars a couple years ago, but were not nearly as good as Nadia Cakes.

 We stayed on a snack these and got a dish of gelato to share at a little chocolate shop.

 Next, we hit up a local vineyard and winery for some free samples!  We ended up getting three bottles, so it was a successful trip! 

 We went to Hickory Park for dinner, you may remember that Jimmy and I went here on our trip to Des Moines in 2013.  All the food was awesome again, especially the onion rings!

 We even got to see my "little sister" Emily!

 A snow storm was in the forecast for Ames. We were hoping it would hold off until we left, but it didn't.

 Heading in to the arena!

 There was a big crowd there to root on Kaylee and the Cowgirls since this is the closest they play to Nebraska.

 It was a really fun and competitive game to watch.  Kaylee is #54, on defense below.

 It came down to the very end!  The cowgirls went up by 1 with just a second left on the clock and won!

 We hit the road right away, because there was snow most of the way home.  I-35 is known to be a treacherous stretch during snow storms.  Luckily it wasn't too windy to try the drive.  It was a VERY slow drive home.  It took over 3 hours just to get to the MN border and another 2 hours and 15 minutes to get home.  Not a fun drive, but we did it as safely as we could!

It was a fun trip and I hope we have another chance to see her play!