Bucket List – Notre Dame
Bucket List – Notre Dame CHECK!
So continuing with my story. I had always wanted to see the Notre Dame campus and attend a football game. Last weekend I was able to do it. Flying was going to cost over $1000 so I decided to drive. I hopped in the car Thursday morning and 13 hours later, I was in South Bend. Really I was in Elkhart, where the hotels were more moderately priced.
Friday
I was up first thing Friday morning to make my way to the bookstore. It reminded me of what we have here in April. Then it was off for the obligatory photo in front of the golden dome.
Then I met my hosts for lunch and we proceeded to spend the rest of the day walking the campus and seeing everything I could see.
I have to hand it to my hosts, the Terrell’s, they’d probably done this many times before. But they acted like it was their first time as they showed me around. I couldn’t believe just how small the campus was. My guess, the footprint of the stadiums, arenas, and such, is comparable to the footprint of the school campus.
My host’s son is a senior at the school, pre-law. He had a test at 4:45 pm on Friday, go figure, so dinner was late Friday night.
Saturday
I was able to sleep in a bit on Saturday which was good since the tailgating for the 7:30 pm kickoff was going to begin before noon. I have no business tailgating for more than six hours. I’m not sure anyone does. But it was clear, cool, crisp, perfect weather and I really enjoyed walking from tailgate to tailgate just to see what folks were doing.
We finally got to kick off. The stadium, by today’s standards, is small, intimate, and wonderful. The team still has some work to do under their first-year Head Coach, Marcus Freeman. They ended up losing to Stanford, 16-14. It probably took Rockne, Leahy, Parseghian, Holtz more than six games to get their sea legs underneath them. Coach Freeman will be fine.
Bucket List Item DONE!
There are those rare times in life when your experiences match your expectations. It doesn’t happen often. It’s not supposed to happen often. My trip to Notre Dame surpassed my wildest dreams. I’ve been invited back. Thinking about it in 2024. It’ll be really hard to top this trip.
If you’d like to read how we got to this point, click here. And see my photos below!
