My Worst Travel Experience Ever

My final Notre Dame football game of the regular season was this past Saturday against BYU.  In honor of Mitt Romney, Manti Te'o, and our game against BYU, I watched this South Park episode.  It's an underrated episode and really summarizes my feelings about Mormons:  they believe some wacky things, but they're really good people.  I'm really glad that I'm not a Mormon (if you don't already know why, you'll see soon), but I'm glad that Mormons exist and I wish there were more of them.

Anyway, I left on Friday night.  The plan was to fly from LaGuardia to O'Hare to South Bend.  My flight was leaving from terminal 2 (I think) at LaGuardia.  When I got through security, some of the gates had a weather map of the United States.  It looked like great weather throughout the country except for the big storms over the Northeast and the Great Lakes areas of the country.  Awesome.  My 6:00 flight had already been delayed until 7:15.  I thought I'd relax and enjoy an age-appropriate beverage.  As some of you know, like George Costanza dresses by mood, I like to drink by mood.  So I always like to drink a Guinness on a Friday night before a Notre Dame football game.  The only problem was there was no bar in the terminal.  Where was I?  Saudi Arabia?  Unlike O'Hare, you can't walk from terminal to terminal at LaGuardia.  So I just had to wait.  My flight was still scheduled to get to O'Hare in time to make my connection.  It turns out that I didn't get on the plane until 7:30 and it didn't take off until about 8:45.  By the time I got to O'Hare, it was too late to catch my flight to South Bend.

I got to know O'Hare really well.  I can now say that I like Midway a lot better.  Sure, it always takes a long time to get through security there and I was once pepper sprayed going through security (a slight exaggeration), but Midway has a significant advantage:  Guinness.  For some reason, all of O'Hare Airport has decided that it won't serve Guinness.  I was hoping to have my Friday night Guinness at O'Hare once I was unable to get one at LaGuardia.  It turns out that by the time I got there, all of the bars were closed.  But on the way back, I hoped to enjoy a victory Guinness.  I walked all over the place and couldn't find a bar that served Guinness.

So that's my rant about O'Hare.  I had to figure out how to get to South Bend.  United was going to put me on a flight that got there at 12:33.  I wanted a little more pre-game time on campus, so I decided to take the Coach USA bus at 5:15.  I found the best place I could to lie down and sleep until then.  It was weird sleeping overnight in an airport.  It was pretty uncomfortable, but I got a few hours of sleep.  I got some really solid sleep on the bus and woke up when the bus was about five minutes away from campus.  By then I was ready to go.

I met Jon at his room in my former home, St. Ed's.  I definitely thought I had spent my last night there, but it was good to be there again.  Staying there for the weekend really made me miss being at Notre Dame.  I love seeing the golden dome and saying a prayer at the Grotto.  I wish I could do it more often.

A beautiful sight.

We did some tailgating with one of Jon's friends and his family and then headed into the stadium.  Jon got me in the student section.  He graduates from law school next year.  So I'll have to enjoy next season, which will be the last year I can watch games from the student section.

Yep, I wore my Tommy Rees jersey.  He's 2-0 as a starter this year and 3-0 in relief.

Notre Dame had a pretty crappy first half and trailed 14-7 at halftime.  The band performed songs from the greatest movie of all time, Back to the Future.  Unfortunately, the crowd was dead.  The second half was very solid.  Our defense was great.  The crowd got very loud after George Atkinson scored a touchdown to give us a 17-14 lead.  After Danny Spond's interception to seal the game, Manti Te'o got on the field on offense for the kneel down.  It wasn't pretty, but we survived.  That's all that matters when you're undefeated and ranked number 5.

Yep, that's a DeLorean

I had a late flight home on Sunday.  It was nice to not have to rush out on Sunday morning.  I went to the 10:00 mass at the basilica and received communion from a great man/priest/professor, Father Bill Miscamble.  I've said that he should be president of the university (although Father Jenkins has redeemed himself lately).  The last class I attended in my last semester was his Australian history class.  He ended my final class at Notre Dame by saying, "My friends, get the hell out of here."

For the first time in a long time, I don't have a trip planned.  Next month, I'll probably be going to the Barclays Center for three basketball games in two nights.  I definitely want to go back to Notre Dame in the winter for a basketball game.  I haven't been to a basketball game since the Joyce Center was renovated, so I'd like to see it.  I might have another basketball trip before baseball season starts again, but we'll see.

Now we're on to our biggest game since Florida State in 1993.  If we beat Oklahoma, we are a serious contender for a National Championship.  Go Irish!