Bus Rides

So today our lacrosse team leaves for Clemson and I decided to write about my experiences with away trips during my just more than one year long collegiate career to this point.

All of the trips, up until this coming spring break, have been taken on coach busses.  Very comfortable but, when taken for long periods of time just get outright boring.  Of course there are always movies, phone games, sleep and whatever else you can think of to entertain yourself.  The longest of which came last spring break when my team made the trek from Troy, New York to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  A total of 27 hours, just about 13 hours each way was absolutely brutal.  The year prior, when they’d gone to Florida, the team all went out the night before and in turn everyone got their fair share of sleep on the short plane ride.  But our coach wasn’t too keen about the cost of flying so he chose a bus last year.  We ended up playing a game that Friday, leaving that night and driving all through it.  It was brutal to say the least.  On the trip there, the kids who were already sick got everyone else sick. We lived in four houses, so those who weren’t sick by then got sick. And on the way back, when all the formerly sick kids felt better, they caught the cold again. So that was unpleasant.  But more or less it was a fun trip and I enjoyed being out of New York for the week.

Another notable trip we took last year was up to “North Country” as referred to by locals as the area above “Upstate” New York. We were on our way to play Saint Lawrence University and on the way we stopped in Lake Placid, New York and visited the Olympic facilities there and even got to see the hockey rink where the Miracle on Ice happened, that was really awesome. Here’s a 120 foot ski jump we saw that was used in the 1980 Olympics:

Our trip to Rochester to play Rochester Institute of Technology was pretty strange. The hotel we stayed at that night had 3 groups staying in it: The RPI men’s lacrosse team, the Philadelphia Wings (professional indoor team) and the Erotic Arts Convention of New York… So that last one included people of all shapes and sizes and to say the least, I saw some strange, disturbing outfits and people that I’d rather not remember.

This Spring the Virginia Tech Men’s Lacrosse team is heading to beautiful, sunny California! I can’t wait. We’re going to visit the Santa Monica pier and have the opportunity to play some very competitive MCLA teams in UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly. It should be a great time, but right now I know everyone on this bus has their minds set on this weekend in Clemson.  Should be a big statement tournament for our team and program as a whole. I’ll be sure to write next week about how it all goes down.

Have a good weekend!