Country Stampede 2012!!

Well Country Stampede time has rolled around again in Manhattan. Initially, Jonathan and I had planned to purchase tickets to partake in the 4-days of fun but we never got around to it and ticket prices jumped up to $85 a day or $150 for the weekend. Luckily, one of Jonathan's friends were selling a pair of tickets with a parking pass and $40 in food vouchers for only $150. We couldn't pass up the opportunity and we were ready to sweat our butts off for the weekend! We headed out on Thursday night around 7pm to see The Farm and Luke Bryan. After waiting in line for what seemed like forever, we were finally in! We ended up only seeing the end of The Farm but got to see Luke Bryan's entire show. I didn't think it was too bad, not to mention how hot Luke Bryan is...Wowzers!! We decided to pack up and leave right as the encore was starting, since I had to work in the morning and I was freezing! Who would have thought it would cool off that much at night, I think the rain storm the night before helped with that. 

On Friday Jonathan hung out with me at school for a few hours in the morning to work. We headed over to the Mexican Restaurant in the Mexican Grocery Store for lunch... It wasn't too bad and pretty cheap. After a few more hours of work and a quick nap we headed back out to Tuttle for Friday Night's festivities. We made it in time to hear the end of Steve Holy's performance, followed by Travis Tritt. Man, is Travis getting old but he can still jam pretty good! After Travis was Zac Brown Band and they put on an awesome show!! At first, I couldn't really see much but then Jonathan and I switched spots so I could actually see the stage and ZBB killed it!! The show was about over and I was a little bit disappointed they hadn't played my favorite song, 'Colder Weather' but then it came on! They did a great job! Totally worth sitting in the hot sun waiting for them to come on! After sitting in the parking lot forever, we headed back to Topeka for the night.

Come on ZBB!!

Saturday morning we hopped on the bike and headed over to Helen's Hilltop in Tonganoxie for the BACA Biker Bash. We arrived just in time for a small storm to stir up. Luckily, it brought only wind with a few sprinkles. The Biker Bash was pretty fun and we got to see a lot of our new BACA friends and the best part is we found out our prints and background checks finally came in! We can now start interacting with kids and begin the patching process... So stay tuned for that! We headed back to Manhattan in the early afternoon for Round 3 of Stampede! And wow was it hot by the time we got back to Manhattan... I don't think I've ever sweat that much before in my life while just sitting in one place! We had our lawn chairs planted just in time to see Jerrod Niemann start his performance. We were really starting to roast and decided it was a good time to investigate the straw hat situation at Stampede. I found a pretty sweet straw hat and Jonathan found a sexy white cowboy hat. He looks so hot in it! He was followed by Brantley Gilbert, who was amazing!!! He tore it up! And since they couldn't afford a fiddle player yet, they performed 'Devil Went Down to Georgia' with the electric guitar and it was awesome!! He put on a great show and really got everyone ready for the headliner, Toby Keith. Toby did an okay job, he had fire, which Jonathan really enjoys, but he didn't sing the best. I'm not a huge Toby Keith song, so I wasn't thinking it would be all that great. We decided to cut out early and head back to Topeka that night since we wouldn't be partaking in the Sunday activities. John Michael Montgomery and The Band Perry was Sunday and since we were both over sweating our butts off, we weren't coming back. Instead, we slept in, grilled out for lunch and met up with Jonathan's aunt and uncle for supper, who were in town from North Dakota. 

Rockin it on Round 3 of Country Stampede

All in all it was great weekend! I got a little bit of a tan and we got to hangout with some of Jonathan's family!

-Anne