2014 Big East Quest – Butler and Georgetown - Games #3 and #4

Erik and Tim were on a Marquette Basketball quest over this past weekend (Jan 18-21). Their goal was to attend the Marquette versus Butler University basketball game at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis on Saturday and then continue on to attend the Marquette versus Georgetown basketball game in Washington D.C. on Monday. We "roughed" out the trip but much of what we did was "winging it"!

We left Saturday morning early so that we could make a 2pm EST game in Indy. Tim picked up Erik at Marquette at 7:15am. Bad weather was threatening and chasing them as they made their way southeast. The snow started in Indy just as the game started. While we were in the game, there was a fiery crash on the Interstate (I-65)that we thankfully missed. Something like 13 semi-trucks and cars were involved in this one!

Hinkle Fieldhouseon the campus at Butler University is an awesome place to see a basketball game. If you ever get a chance, you must go see a game there. As the season ticket holder that sat next to us said…"this place smells like basketball". It REALLY does!!! A couple of clutch free throws by Marquette put this game into overtime but Butler totally dominated in the OT and resulted in a Marquette loss.

By attending the Marquette/Butler game, the weather got ahead of us. We decided to drive about 4 hours east to get some of the mileage behind us Saturday evening as we made our way to Washington D.C. That turned out to be a rough drive in lots of snow. We continued our drive to D.C. on Sunday.

Our first stop Sunday afternoon in D.C. was on the Georgetown University campus. Erik kept saying how much he liked the campus. The mix of old buildings and new was impressive. The campus seems very compact and surrounded by a lot of old buildings giving a very profound charm to the area. We did stop to grab lunch at 'the Tombs" which was a recommended "must stop" by Dan Ferris, a Georgetown Alumni and father of another Xavier High School student.

Hotwire became our friend to find hotel rooms. Hotwire found us an awesome hotel in an awesome location for two tourists which was only two blocks from the Whitehouse! This allowed Erik and Tim to visit most of the memorials Sunday evening. We walked to the Washington monument, the Lincoln memorial, the WWII Veterans Memorial, the Vietnam Vets memorial and even the Capital building itself. (The manager of the Capital Hilton was awesome and allowed us to park for free on Monday for the game. He took care of the two WI boys!!).

We didn't really think about it but Monday was Martin Luther King Jr Day. In the picture below, Erik is standing on the spot where MLK gave his "I have a dream speech" on MLK Day! We couldn't help but try to keep an eye open for the students that were participating in the March for Life from St. Pius as it was also the day for that march; we never saw them!.

Thankfully the monuments and federal buildings were open and thus we could visit the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Our other highlights included visiting the Air & Space Smithsonian museum and making a visit to the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial. The memorial at the Pentagon is for the 184 people that lost their lives on 9/11 and was really moving. Of all the memorials I have visited, that one moved me more than any other. There were signs all over saying you could not use Photography so I don't have photos. We were somewhat afraid of being arrested by the Pentagon police!!! J

Monday evening was the Marquette game versus Georgetown at the Verizon Center in downtown D.C. The Verizon Center is the home to the Washington Wizards (NBA) and the Washington Capitals (NHL) and is an entirely different "feel" than the home for Butler. Again, we had awesome seats but sat in a section surrounded by other Marquette fans. A three-point Marquette shot put this game into overtime and the loud and powerful chant of "We Are Marquette" frustrated even the TV cameramen that were there. The Hoya Saxa cheer by the loud and proud Georgetown fans was fun to watch. The game went to overtime and we got to see Marquette beat Georgetown!

Our plan was to attend the game Monday evening and immediately following the game, hit the road for an all-night drive home. Well, we didn't plan on a) the game being nationally televised resulting in lots of TV timeouts, b) the game going to overtime and c) the D.C. Metro subway closing at midnight. We had to wait while a new train was dispatched to get everyone at the game home which means Erik and Tim never really got out of D.C. until about 1:30am.

And now for the drive home…….D.C. was already talking about closing schools on Tuesday morning which means that a winter storm was headed directly into our face on the drive home. Couple that with the prospect of 24 inches of lake effect snow that we couldn't avoid, our drive back was interesting. We had sleet and ice in Pennsylvania, lots of snow in Indiana, and slush being tossed onto our windshield without a working windshield washer pump which we believe froze up with 3 degree temperatures!!! Our drive home was exciting but we managed to get Erik back to school with some sleep over night on time to make his 2pm class on Tuesday afternoon.

What a great father-son road trip!!!