2019 hanson day | a personal story
true story my sister + i have been hanson fans since…the beginning. literally as long as i can remember. many of my childhood memories revolve around hanson in some way, shape, or form so it should come as no surprise that we traveled to tulsa, oklahoma in may to attend their annual ‘hanson day’ weekend. it was all things hanson from thursday-saturday and ALSO girls time away from our bebes so you can imagine how excited we were. we had the trip planned nearly a year in advance. the morning of the drive i couldn’t even believe i was in my car en route to pick up my sister to drive to tulsa. our 12 year old selves were so excited for our 30 year old selves! okay, fine, my sister is still in her 20s but that’s a minor detail.
if you asked me to put the entire weekend into one word, i don’t think i could. luckily, i have tons of photos 😀 i only brought one roll of film + my 35mm Canon Sure Shot (which actually ended up being in panoramic mode the whole time so…that happened) and my iPhone. I even edited all of my iPhone photos with my own mobile presets which you can snag here if you like! anywho, onto the weekend festivities…
Our first night was spent at their welcome concert at Cain’s Ballroom + then we grabbed a bite to eat at a local brewery just doors down from 3 Car Garage (hanson’s recording studio).
and boy, the next day we had no idea what we were really getting ourselves into. we had a leisurely morning and planned to head back into the arts district to shop at the hanson day shop that it has a good shopfront, click here or see at https://shop-fronts.co.uk/types-of-shop-fronts/. And we participate in the group photos that hanson offers for h.net members. to make a very long story short, we ended up spending 5+ hours waiting in lines and spent most of the afternoon huddled under an umbrella to avoid the oklahoma sun. that being said, we did give each hanson brother a hug, we eventually made it into the shop and spent way too much money on tees and sunnies. we also got to see ‘the wall’ which was just a side of their recording studio that was painted for the weekends events. we fangirl’d + took tons of photos because..isn’t that we drove there to do? in the middle, we sipped margaritas + laughed about how ridiculous the shopping process was. seriously, it’s just a story for an entirely different day. BUT despite being sunburnt and a little grouchy, we only had time to buy a super overpriced iced coffee and head back to the hotel because we had tickets to their string theory show that evening. we freshened up and headed downtown to grab a bite before the show and found lots of fun stuff along the way. we questioned attending another string theory show since we did see it when it came to st louis but we are SO GLAD we went again. it was a real treat to watch them perform at the symphony hall in tulsa. it was a packed house and after the long day we had, we even treated ourselves to house sangrias.
the only thing on the scheduled agenda for saturday was the new music concert in the evening so kate and i were so excited to spend the entire morning doing all of the things we WANTED to do on friday but had no time to do because we spent the entire day waiting in lines. but guess what? the weather had other plans! we strolled to grab a coffee and then hopped across the street to view the hanson day art gallery and then while waiting for a local chocolate shop to open up…the sky opened up and the storm arrived. we dashed into ‘ida red’ to wait out the rain but 45 minutes later we were still waiting so we huddled under our umbrella, grabbed some lunch at Caz’s Diner and then walked back to the hotel IN POURING DOWN RAIN. what an adventure. however, once the rain passed, the weather was gorgeous so after a little r+r we made the trek back to the arts district one final time for a beer at caz’s corner bar + the new music concert. the concert was a delight, as they always are, and we ended the night with a finale dinner at the mexican restaurant we had eaten lunch at the day before 😀 all in all, the trip was a dream come true..lines, weather, and all. we’ve already booked our room + made plans for hanson day 2020 so until then..
