UHND.com - Notre Dame Football, Basketball, & Recruiting

1) Game
- just awesome, an instant classic better to go with the ‘92 “Snow Bowl Game”against PSU.
-PSU fans were uniformly nice before, during, and after (way, way better than the Indiana fans).
-a lot of mutual respect after that tilt.

2) Orange Bowl pre party.- went to the President’s Pre Game Celebration at the Paddock Room in Hard Rock Stadium. Very well attended - saw multiple old classmates, and met many new friends. Level of support for Freeman and the program and the school is as high as it has ever been.
New president and the rest were there, but I didn’t meet him. Some good football talk esp with a DOJ a attorney from DC. Lots of old stories. Fair number of “old players” ….all younger than me. Since I’ve followed closely for a long time, I knew of them and remembered them……and they are getting older - amazing how fast that happens.
Wine, Guinness, Mich Ultra, and Modello’s were being handed out - I went with Modello’s

3) My kid presently at ND and I and went together and the students had a blast. They sat in the first several rows behind the South end zone, next to the band, and they saw themselves on SportsCenter clips which they loved.
The students from all schools in final 4 have been given a really cool towel with their school colors at each game …. a very kind keepsake gift from Taco Bell with no advertising on it.
A special time - they had a big group of friends that all went - had a party also, and they do know how rare this is, and what a blessing it is to get to have this s a student…..I must have mentioned that a few times or so….

4) Hard Rock Stadium - not a big fan for one main reason……transportation to and especially from the stadium.
Shuttles - only 3 to common Miami locations - not close to anything though and take forever in a city the size of Miami. Uber pick up site - just one with many thousands trying to use. Traffic from Game has to be overlaid onto regular Miami traffic which is considerable. I actually read about this from UM fan experiences in past there, so we pre booked our Uber to come in at 12:45 AM after much of crowd cleared out….that did work well, but I felt sorry for the PSU fans who had to wait around after losing - that would have been miserable. As it was, we were able to tolerate an awful lot given that we won, lol.

Miami people very nice all around and without exception.

Hotel was a good memory. My kid booked it and had never done so before & figured that we should be close to the stadium. I never thought about it. This hotel was seedier than a pumpkin on Pergonal.
The carpet was sticky and stained and smelled of a sweet moldy fragrance that got into any clothing that touched the floor. The bathroom was dank, 2 iffy little towels, and one single ply roll of toilet paper with 20% left on it.
The shower was in a tub with a curtain with the stained ceiling bowing down from water damage from above. My favorite were the long strands of either brown-stained dry wall fibers vs fungal mycelium reaching down to infect The Last of Us.
The old heating/AC unit didn’t work, and the windows didn’t open, but the heavy pull curtain did cover some of the window.
And the tattooed girl behind the bullet proof glass at check in was kind enough to never look up from her cell phone as checked us out on Friday which made it fairly fast.
In other words….it was just like in place in medical school, so I liked it.
I will say that the communal hot tub one floor below our window allowed for unavoidable eavesdropping on some interesting conversation….that was a bonus.

5) Travel :
I wanted to drive, I hate flying in the modern era. But my child has school the next week and some big things going on that couldnt be missed, so we flew. Trip to Miami….smooth.
Trip out…not so much….thank you very much Winter Storm Cora! Which shut down the major hubs in Atlanta, Charlotte, etc, etc. and we require connection flights for our destination.
Flight via first airline cancelled as we were ubering in to airport so we didn’t know it - I wasn’t checking my app…it was sunny and 70 where we were. We discovered the cancellation after sitting i. The gate area for about 30 min. By then, others had already searched and filled all remaining options. Waited in a long line & found that all other flight options were either cancelled or filled.
Bought tickets on another airline and went to that gate where we waited for another few hours…..and the flight was cancelled again as boarding time approached. Was told by both airlines that best they could do for us would be Sunday (instead of Friday like we had originally planned).
I actually talked to a rental car agency &considered driving since my kid needed to get back until I realized that even an inch of snow shuts down the South and that driving would also be a nightmare.
Ultimately, we booked a Fri &Sat stay at a nice hotel and just enjoyed reading ND articles and the sunshine.
Sun Am we had 2 separate bookings for insurance - never cancelled either airlines bookings. One flight got delayed again because pilots were exhausted and needed sleep. Took other one from Miami to Phoenix and the. Phoenix back to MI. Then drove through a Snow white out going 40 mph and struggling to see the road the rest of the way home. Got home about midnight. Meanwhile, a friend from school picked up my kid at airport and they arrived back at ND late last night as well.
Saw ND and PSU fans doing same as us even on Sunday….can’t imagine what I was like for the PSU people.

But we had a great time together and we won. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, but I will still now consider my travel distance radius for driving instead of flying to be Miami.

Only had 2 days of clothes, and now will see if that first hotel smell will come out.

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