Tag: travel

last tues­day i left for Col­orado Springs, CO to sup­port my team­mates at the NCAA fenc­ing cham­pi­onships. it was quite the trip. Those who drove were 4: Steve, Mad Dog, Mat­ty, and myself. the first 18 hours of our dri­ve out there were fine; until we arrived in Col­orado amid the after­math of one of their worst bliz­zards in years. I‑70 was closed 12 miles into Col­orado despite the fact that there was nary a snowflake on the ground. we detoured to CO-25 which was also closed. we detoured to CO-40, closed. we end­ed up going all the way to Pueblo and then drove north till we arrived in Col­orado Springs. 8 miles south of Col­orado Springs we final­ly saw some snow, by the next day most of it had melt­ed.

we beat the team out there despite leav­ing after they did. they’re flight was laid over at St. Louis and the next day they had a con­nec­tion in Hous­ton before final­ly get­ting into Col­orado. the tour­na­ment was sup­posed to start on Thurs­day and con­clude on Sun­day but since none of the teams could make it out on time they resched­uled and had a com­bined tour­na­ment last­ing all day sat­ur­day and all day sun­day. tough stuff with the alti­tude.

that left us with two full days to kill. since the Super 8 we were stay­ing at was lit­er­al­ly 30 feet from the Drury Inn where the rest of the team was, most of our time was spent over there goof­ing around, uti­liz­ing the hot tub, etc. Janusz was glad we were out there so we did­n’t have to pay for our meals for most of the trip. we went to a bar one night, saw Chica­go as a team and ate and ate and ate. the night before the tour­na­ment we had a team meet­ing and every­one got their goals.

the first day of com­pe­ti­tion was intense. our fencers dropped a few bouts here and there, and the direct­ing was a bit try­ing at times, but by the end of the day we had a nice cush­ion in 1st place, although we still knew it was going to be quite close. the 2nd and final day was a roller­coast­er of emo­tion the entire day. we were only up by one bout in the final round with Penn State right on our heels. we need­ed any com­bi­na­tion of 3 ND wins or 3 PSU loss­es to secure the vic­to­ry. we won. there was pan­de­mo­ni­um. all of those clich s about win­ning and being a champion…are true when you real­ly are one.

our AD Bernard took us to Carrab­ba’s an ber-nice Ital­ian place in cel­e­bra­tion. once we got back to the hotel a few folks went on an alco­hol run and a bunch of us went to the bars. i like tequi­la shots. we played a few games of pool, just relaxed with our team and a few peo­ple from the oth­er mid­west teams. then we went back to the hotel, par­tied a bit more and hit the road home. (Mad Dog drove first, he had­n’t par­tak­en because he is on antibi­otics). 20 hours lat­er we arrived in South Bend. exhaust­ed but vic­to­ri­ous.

i can­not speak, my voice is shot from yelling. i shot plen­ty of footage to make a swee­t­ass video and took a ton of pic­tures. we are cham­pi­ons! i am a cham­pi­on! w00t!