Earl and Bob's Billiken Travel Adventures

The record snowstorms in the Northeast region of the country have really created a lot of havoc with the travels of the SLU basketball team in the past few weeks. My SLU broadcast partner Bob Ramsey and I had the opportunity to live out our own real-life version of the movie "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" over the past few days during our latest road trip to Philadelphia.

We had quite an eventful week ourselves as we tried to keep up with the
Billikens during their two-game road swing in Philadelphia. (two
Billiken victories, I may add).

It all started last Saturday, when the Billikens defeated LaSalle in the
first of two games. As many of you know, Rammer and I never made it to
the game. In fact, we never made it to Philadelphia. The area was
blanketed with 28 inches of snow, which shut down the airport on Friday
and Saturday of last week. We could not get out of town, so we were
relegated to watching the game on television like everyone else.

SLU's next game came on Tuesday against St. Joseph's. We were scheduled
to leave on Monday evening at 6 p.m. However, another big storm was on
the horizon in Philly, so there was a lot of anxious moments. We did not
want to miss another game.

In checking on the status of that flight, I noticed that it was delayed
for more than two and a half hours. So, Rammer booked us on an earlier
flight, which was to leave St. Louis at 3 p.m. with a two-hour layover
in Chicago. We get to the airport early, only to learn that there were
potential problems in Chicago with the weather and we may miss the
connecting flight to Philly. (I know, everyone has experienced that
problem in Chi-Town).

Meanwhile, the status of our original flight was back on schedule, so we
decided to switch back to the 6 p.m. flight on Southwest Airlines. Only
this time, our boarding passes put us in the C Group, meaning that we
would be among the last people on the plane. That meant having to settle
for a middle seat in the row. Being a larger individual myself, I wasn't
liking that proposition for a two-hour flight. I didn't think the two
people who would be flanking me in the aisle and window seats would be
too happy, either. For a few extra dollars, we were able to get into the
A group. I got my aisle seat and we were good to go. We got to Philly at
about 10 p.m. on Monday night.

The big storm was scheduled to hit Philly at about game-time on Tuesday
night, which it did. During our call of the game, Rammer found out that
our scheduled flight back to St. Louis on Wednesday night was cancelled.
We knew that was going to happen. After the game, we would learn that a
flight out of Philly on Thursday was also doubtful because of the
weather. That was news that we didn't want to hear.

Once we left the arena, our driver took us through the snowstorm to a
Phillip's Cheesesteaks right by the airport. (Gots to have a cheesestake
in Philly, right?). When we got back to the hotel, we immediately head
to the business room to get on the computer to find out how are we going
to get the hell out of Philly and back to St. Louis on Thursday. We were
determined not to be back on Friday. As of that time, there would be no
flights out of Philly for two days. Yikes.

We then decided to get up on Wednesday morning and get on the Amtrak
train to Pittsburgh, spend the night and fly out of Pittsburgh early
Thursday morning. We arrive at the train station at about 10 a.m. for
our scheduled departure at 12:40 p.m. The train was delayed by more than
two hours, so we didn't leave Philly until about 3 p.m. It was about an
eight hour train ride to Pittsburgh with all of the stops in between.

Making the trip a lot easier for us was the presence of former college
basketball coach Pete Gillen (Xavier, Providence, Virginia). He did the
SLU-St. Joseph's game for television and he was on his way to Pittsburgh
to do a TV game on Thursday. We spent much of the trip talking
basketball. We talked about those great days when SLU battled Xavier in
the ol' MCC conference. It was wonderful passing the time of a long trip
with Coach Gillen. He told us some great stories about those heated
battles between his Xavier teams and Bob Huggins' Cincinnati Bearcats in
what may be the most intense rivalry in college basketball. Some of his
tales were hilarious.

We arrive in Pittsburgh at 11 p.m. and immediately jump in a cab to head
to the hotel where Rammer had booked us a room during the train ride. It
was a Residence Inn Suites by the Pittsburgh airport. The only problem
was that the cab driver was exactly sure where the hotel was and he took
a wrong turn on the way to the hotel.

We finally check in and get into our rooms at midnight. We asked for a
5:30 wake-up call because we had booked a 7:30 a.m. flight back to St.
Louis. Both of us were dog tired, but neither of us could fall asleep
right away. In his room, Rammer watched Dog the Bounty Hunter before
going to sleep while I watched a replay of Hardball with Chris Matthews
before finally nodding off for the evening.

We were up bright and early at 5:30 a.m. for the 6 a.m. shuttle to the
airport. We got the 7:30 a.m. plane to Chicago. We landed in Chicago at
8:45 p.m., got off the plane, then proceeded a couple of gates over to
get on to the 9 a.m. plane headed to St. Louis, which was in the process
of boarding. Perfect timing.

At 10 a.m., our plane lands in St. Louis. Home, finally.

It was quite an ordeal to get home the past couple days. I am so glad to
be back in my own bed. Time to go to sleep.

Talk to you later.