I’m writing from Saskatoon, the second stop on a two week travel fast that will take me to, or through, 4 countries and 7 different beds (including my own for one night!)
The first stop was South Bend, Indiana, to see Notre Dame play Nevada. I flew to O’Hare with my son, rented a car and drove to South Bend. The plane had a large number of Notre Dame fans on it, and judging by the comment from the woman at the rental booth, a lot of Hertz‘s rentals that day were headed to South Bend.
We first visited the Notre Dame bookstore, which is the first or second most visited tourist attraction in Indiana (seriously). The place was packed, some of them there to see Dick Vitale sign his book.
We spent the rest of the day touring a campus that has changed greatly since I left 31 years ago but remains the most beautiful campus in America. We tried to go to the Notre Dame-North Carolina womens soccer match, but it was sold out, a far cry from the dozens who sometimes would come see us play when I was on the first varsity soccer team there (we got hundreds a few times!)
My name on the wall where all Notre Dame monogram winners are listed.
The highlight Saturday was the game of course. Eigthty thousand people attend those games, almost all of whom (except students) travel from some distance. I’ve written about this before, it is so much fun to see airports filled with sports fans traveling to or from games. Even the day after the game — today O’Hare was filled with folks wearing Notre Dame gear.
It is always more fun when you win, of course, and we did 35-0. Having my son along made it special.
Being able to travel so freely is truly one of the blessings of liberty we so enjoy in this country. The woman in front of me who attended her first ever Notre Dame game and who was in tears at being able to fulfill a lifelong dream would surely agree.
I hope some of those folks who traveled to South Bend (or to Ann Arbor or Columbus or Gainsville or Knoxville or East Lansing or St Louis or Charlottesville, or any of the other places college football was played this past weekend) will appreciate that and will feel free to disagree whenever someone says that, in a tough economy, travel is something we might perhaps be able to do without.
