Fifth trip: Los Angeles

This season the Cardinal plays USC at the Galen Center on Friday, January 8th. Game time is (sigh) TBS, but supposing it will be 7pm as would be typical, you can sneak out of work early on the Friday afternoon, catch a 2pm AA flight or a 4:10 Southwest flight at SJC, grab a rental car and be at the Galen Center door in plenty of time. Well, enough time.

Once there you can see what kind of team the troubled USC Athletics administration has managed to scrape together (read Bob Kinder's analysis for the juicy details).

You get all day Saturday and Sunday morning to live it up in the greater L.A. Basin. What will you do with the time? Share with us in the comments, please?

The UCLA game will be on Sunday at (you guessed it) TBS o'clock 2 PM. Supposing it will be the typical 1pm, you can catch a 5:25 Southwest or You should be able to make the 6:45 AA return flight—but don't book this flight until the game time is announced. If there was a late decision to put the game on TV, the start time might be later.

If you would rather drive (the Travel page talks about the fly-drive trade-offs), you can schedule a leisurely start Friday, go down 101 with a lunch stop at Pea Soup Anderson's in Buellton, or someplace in Santa Barbara. With two drivers trading off the return trip up I5 can be completed on the Sunday night.

Local Trips: Davis and Fresno State

UC Davis

In our haste to write about the UConn trip we skipped over a local road-trip, Sunday November 22 to UC Davis. The route to Davis is 114 miles, and Google's estimate of 2 hours is conservative for a Sunday afternoon. Here's the route:

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The game time isn't set. If it's midday (1pm would be typical for a Sunday game) is 2pm, so it should be feasible to make the round-trip in a day. If it's later, see our Travel Page for a motel recommendation.

Fresno State

On Wednesday 12/30, at the ever-popular TBS 7 o'clock, the Cardinal plays the Fresno State Bulldogs in Fresno. It's a 3.5-hour drive over Pacheco Pass; here is a route-map:

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It's a bit hard to plan for this trip without knowing the game time. If the game starts in the middle of the day, it would be possible to make it a day-trip and be home that night. If Since the game starts after 6pm, you may want to think about a motel. Expedia lists a number of motels in Fresno at $40/night and up.

Possible Booster Buses

The FBC board have very tentatively discussed the possibility of running booster bus for either of these trips. If you would be interested in taking a bus to Davis, or to Fresno, instead of driving yourself, please send email saying so to travel@stanfordfbc.org. No bus will happen unless the board is pretty sure of enough riders to pay for it!

Second Trip: UConn

We continue our previews of the road trips of 2009-10. See the "Archive" menu on the right for the preceding ones.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009 will be the historic date on which Stanford initiates a home-and-home series with the UConn Huskies. In coming years we will always be at away to UConn and at home to Tennessee, or vice versa!

The game will be played on the UConn campus in Storrs, CT at a time to be specified. (The time was 5:30 ET in a preseason schedule but has gone back to "tba" on the official Stanford schedule.) Stay-at-homes will be able to watch it on ESPN. But if you want the full experience (and no nattering Debbie Antonelli) you will have to travel to the game.

We've got logistic and booking tips on the Travel page. Here we just want to comment on the thoroughly miserable scheduling of this game. It falls on the first day of a national five-day holiday orgy:

• Wednesday, National Get Your Shopping and Wrapping Done Now day
• Thursday, Christmas Eve
• Friday, Christmas
• Saturday, National No Available Parking Space at the Mall day
• Sunday, National Buyer's Remorse and Recriminations day

And they expect us to travel over the best part of that? It's asking quite a lot of the fans.

The First Trip: ODU and Rutgers

We are starting a series of posts to preview the road trips of the upcoming 2009-10 season. Use this info to help plan your winter travels, make early reservations, or just to daydream a bit!

If you plan to make one of these trips, or if you have any other thoughts about travel, please add a comment below. Other FBC members will be interested. (Yes, really they will!)

First Trip: ODU and Rutgers

There is no easy fall tournament this year, no Virgin Island or Hawaii fun time. We get right down to business on Friday evening, November 13, when the Cardinal play on the Old Dominion campus in Norfolk VA. In our travel notes we assume taking an overnight flight from SFO on the Thursday night, giving most of a day to check into a hotel and poke around Norfolk. (We'll post some links to attractions later.)

The next game is at Rutgers on Sunday, giving a day and a half to traverse some very interesting territory (google map). The possibilities for sight-seeing are wide: you could stop off in Washington DC, in Baltimore, in Philadelphia; you could even have a day and night in Manhattan, and go out to Rutgers on the train. Update:We've put details of DelMarva Peninsula highlights on the travel page.

Those of us who attended the last game at Rutgers—Kayla Pedersen's impressive debut, the game won by Candice with a free-throw after Epiphany Prince made a silly foul—remember very well how "The RAC" is full to the rafters with loud, friendly, red-clad fans.

The Sunday game time is still TBS but, assuming a typical 1pm start, it 2pm ET will be easy to fly home to the Bay Area that evening from nearby Newark Airport. there is a Continental departure for SFO at 5:45 and a United flight at 6:20. There are no nonstops to SJC but several 1-stops via Denver.

Up next— Connecticut for Christmas eve...

St. Louis 'Cues

St. Louis means barbeque! Sometime in your 3+ days under the Arch, you gotta chow down on dry-rub ribs, slow-cooked brisket, pulled pork, sweet-potato fries, spicy baked beans... Yum! Checking a variety of sources the following downtown locations look like good bets: Pappy's Smokehouse, 3106 Olive St. From Yelp: "...picnic tables, rolls of paper towels on each table, big squirt containers of sauce... Loud blues playing over the sound system... they serve til they run out of food, and then they lock the door. Go early or call ahead." The Shaved Duck, a new 'cue-oriented gastropub with "a terrific selection of beers... curated with great care." Order a side of mac&cheese, and apple cobbler with ice cream for dessert. Smoki O's at 1545 N Broadway, mainly take-out and located in an industrial area. If the weather turns fine, grab some takeout lunch and go to one of St. Louis' many parks.

Pep Rally and Send-off Sunday afternoon

All those going to St. Louis, plan to be at the team hotel on Sunday 4/5 from 3:30 to 5pm for a reception—complimentary nosh and no-host bar—followed by team send-off with the Band. If you hope to make this, you need to RSVP to Lisa Ortiz (Lortiz@stanford.edu). The location is the Palm Court Lobby of the Millennium Hotel St. Louis (200 South 4th st.). Here's a google map (gettin' to like this google inset thing)

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Cardinal Spot in St. Louis

As at Tampa, the NCAA has designated a specific lounge for the fans of each Regional to gather. We from the Berkeley Regional are invited to hang out at:

Skybox Sports Bar & Grill
800 North Third Street
St. Louis, MO 63102
(314-241-5100)

(Contrary to our usual practice, we are not linking to the bar's URL. The URL is www.skyboxstl.com but we do not recommend opening it; it is Flash-based, content-light, and has loud annoying music you cannot turn off.) Here's a google map showing the route from the bar (A) to the Scottrade center (B).

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Planning for St. Louis

Hotels and air

The Cardinal Ticket office recommends Anthony Travel for booking hotels in St. Louis and air travel to it. Check that linked page for lists of hotels and available flights.

As usual, we don't publicize the team hotel, at least until we can announce a send-off event, but FBC members who really want to know can call the office and ask DeeDee.

WBCA High School All-American Game

The Women's Basketball Coaching Assn. stages this annual event, this year on the Saturday April 4th. Order tickets here, although when we attended the one in Tampa, there were plenty of seats available at the door.

On the roster for this year: Cal's recruits Layshia Clarendon and DeNesha Stallworth, USC's Monique Oliver, and of course, our own Joslyn Tinkle—and if you don't know a lot about her, you just haven't been reading John and Sue's Recruiting Blog.

Passing St. Louis Time

The usual schedule gives us all day Monday and most of Tuesday for recreation in the Gateway City. Here are some planning resources:

• The NCAA's guide to the event, which has an arena seating chart and parking info & more;
• Explore St. Louis's list of 25 things to do;
• Yelp's list of downtown Brew Pubs and the Anheuser-Busch tour (it's a beer-drinkin' town);
• The City Museum; St. Louis Art Museum; the Museum of Westward Expansion; the Botanical Garden and arboretum; the Eugene Field Home and Toy Museum;
• Shopping: Union Station is a mall inside the historic depot; Laclede's Landing is a riverfront "old town"; the Central West End neighborhood has galleries and restaurants; and here is a guide to more malls;
• A variety of guided tours.

Enjoy!

Team Send-Off Monday 3:30

The Band and any available fans will gather at the team hotel at 3:30 pm Monday 3/30, to see the team off to the game. The team hotel is the Hilton Garden Inn San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge, located at 1800 Powell Street, Emeryville (google map). This is not, repeat, not coordinated with the rally bus from the Stanford Campus. That bus will depart from Stanford at 3:30, the same time the team departs from the hotel in Emeryville. To attend the send-off you must find your own way to the hotel and then to the game. Because the campus parking lots are not public until 5pm, one might plan to hang out in the hotel lobby, or at Emeryville's Marina Park, out in the Bay at the end of Powell street, and begin the hunt for parking space about 4:45 or so.

Parking Near Haas Pavilion

Do not fear the Berkeley Parking Monster! True, there is near-zero public parking near the campus during normal hours; but there is plenty of off-peak parking. Off-peak begins at 5pm weekdays and includes all day Saturday and Sunday -- which covers all game times nicely.

Here are the official rules for off-peak parking, but we can net them out as follows:

• Buy a ticket at the dispenser machine: $1/hour with a $12 maximum.
• Machines only take cash, so bring plenty of $1s and $5s.

Here is a relevant section taken from the official Parking Map (large PDF) showing the lots closest to Haas (click to embiggen):

Savvy Traveller Su Schaffer favors the non-University parking structure between Durant and Channing, just south of Telegraph. Other convenient lots are the Recreational Sports Facility Garage, a large underground facility just down Bancroft from Haas, and the Bancroft/Fulton lot a bit further, which can be entered from Bancroft or from Durant. There are several other public (non-University) parking facilities indicated on the full map (PDF linked above), south of the campus between Milvia and Shattuck avenues. Give yourself a little extra time for circulating these narrow, busy streets and it should be quite possible to park for the games. (Has anyone used the Ellsworth Structures off-peak? Please email travel@stanfordfbc.org if you have!)

Berkeley Hotels for Out-of-Towners

Coming to Berkeley for the Regional? Or, do you want a place to stay over after the late game on Saturday? Here are some hotel recommendations. First, three that are a very short walk from Haas Pavilion:

• Hotel Durant, remodelled in 2008, apparently with a clever "college" theme. Some FBC members are known to be staying here.
• Berkeley City Club, a classic building by architect Julia Morgan, praised for weddings and such events, but the rooms get mediocre reviews.
• Bancroft Hotel, another quaint landmark building, said to have good service and breakfasts but tiny rooms and ancient furnishings.

If you don't mind a short (2-mi) drive, here are three nice places in the nearby waterside town of Emeryville:

• Hilton Garden Inn. Recommended by DeeDee.
• Courtyard by Marriott Emeryville.
• Four Point by Sheraton San Francisco Bay Bridge.

Game Time Set - and Party!

The game times have been set:

• 6pm: #4 Iowa State v. #9 Michigan State
• 8:30pm: #2 Stanford v. #3 Ohio State

In addition, the Buck/Cardinal club and Stanford Athletics are holding a pre-session get-together at Raleigh's on Telegraph Ave. For details go to the FBC Website and click on the link under Upcoming Events. Space is limited; RSVP soon! News on a possible fan bus from Stanford to Berkeley will be available soon. Go Cardinal!