Season transition

Last Friday morning, I covered the last football game of the season.

Tuesday night, I covered the first basketball game of the season. Four days later. So I guess you can see I'm not going to have too much idle time on my hands. At least for the next few months, the trips will be a lot shorter.

Facts about this trip:

--The only driving I had to do was to and from the school. From there, I rode buses down to Detroit and back.

--Hardly saw any snowflakes during the days we were gone. A few flakes on the way back, but not enough to get the road wet. Mr. Lake Effect was taking a few days off.

--Our team lost 40-0. It was expected. I won't get into everything, but they went up against a powerhouse private school. There is a basic unfairness when small public schools go against large private schools. I could say more about it.

--I road in the bus with the JV team and the cheerleaders. It was a fun time and a good experience. The kids are fun to be with.

--We stayed the first night at the Comfort Inn in Mount Pleasant. We stayed the second night at the Crown Royal Hotel in Auburn Hills, north of Detroit. The Crown Royal is a much more opulent place--but the beds at Comfort Inn were wider and the room a little larger.

--My wife stayed home--and yet I had someone else in my bed both nights! I'll let you ponder that for a minute or so.

--My older son was able to come over for Thanksgiving--he lives about 20 minutes away from the Crown Royal. We arrived about 3:30 p.m., and he came over about a half hour after I called. We had a pizza together in the hotel's bar and talked for about two hours. It was a good visit.

--On Thursday morning, the wake-up call came at 5:30 a.m. On Friday morning, it came at 4:45 a.m. We had to check out, get breakfast downstairs, get on the bus and ride to Ford Field in downtown Detroit. You will be happy to know that they had eliminated the big stink at the field left by the Detroit Lions the day before.

--There was a welcome-home celebration when the bus got back to town--at about 12:45 a.m. Saturday morning. Three police cars and two fire trucks, sirens blaring, escorted the buses back to town, and there was a crowd of about 100 welcoming the players back. From there, the bus went back to the school, where my car was parked. I got back home about 1:30 a.m. The next morning, I was back at the office, working on my story.

--I had my cell phone along, of course, and called home either twice or three times a day. My younger son spent Thanksgiving with my wife, and they watched a couple movies together.

--We had four people in our motel room: a team trainer, the athletic director, a statistician and me. I think the trainer is the youngest of the four, but not by much. One night (in Mount Pleasant) we sat around the coaches' room, enjoying pizza and beer (in most cases) and talking football. I shared the bed with the athletic director.

I'm glad I didn't have to do all that driving, even if the weather conditions were pretty good for Michigan in late November.

Anyway, I'm back now and getting into basketball season. The girls started tonight; the boys begin next week. I have to write preview articles for them--I did the girls on Sunday.

And it's nice to be back home again.