Life on the road is far from glamorous, that’s for sure.

Our trip to Columbus reminded me of the movie “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” minus a few things.

We bused from Bemidji to Duluth, flew from Duluth to Minneapolis to Columbus, and bused to the Hyatt near the Capitol of Ohio. We bused to and from the rink a handful of times.

The Beavers played well on the road both nights, much better than the final scores would say. After getting a point on Friday night in a shootout against Ohio State, the Beavers continued to battle hard on Saturday night. Danielle Williams, a freshman on the BSU squad scored her first career goal in the 3-1 loss to the Buckeyes. It was nice to see the Beavers get scoring from two rookies this past weekend. Unfortunately, the usual suspects were unable to get any lucky bounces for Bemidji State.

After game two, We bused back to the hotel with dinner from Buffalo Wild Wings in hand. I love their buffalo chicken ranch wraps, however, I forgot that we’d be eating so late. Heartburn was inevitable. I should have known better than to eat spicy food after 10pm. “Lights out” was 11pm with a wake up call at 3:45am. It was hard to believe that a few hours later we’d load up the bus and head back to the airport at 4:30am Sunday morning.

When the team and staff arrived at the airport this morning, we were greeted by the check in clerk. I don’t think he was quite sure how to handle a group of 28. No surprise as we had dealt with plenty of adversity this weekend already in our travels. Once we were checked in, we headed to our gate and awaited our departure from Columbus to Minneapolis. That flight was flawless. However, once we got to Minneapolis and reached our connecting flight we found out that they overbooked our flight to Duluth. Why do airlines do this? And on a holiday weekend nonetheless. Then we were told they were doing maintenance to our plane so that delayed our departure. We were originally scheduled to leave the cities at 10:05am, but that turned into almost 11:20am.

Some of the girls headed to the gate to nap and study, while others like myself went to find food and coffee. I went to the gate and dropped off my broadcast cases with Jamie Hathaway who was staying with all our bags while we went back to gate C for food. Thanks Jamie!

I love that most airports have either Starbucks or Caribou Coffee shops. Got my egg and cheddar sandwich from Quizno’s and my Ho Ho Mint White Mocha from Caribou. Yum! I was set to head back to the gate and wait.

While waiting for our plane to be loaded, I was invited to play a game of “Crazy 8’s” with Erin Johnson, Erika Wheelhouse and Jessica Havel. It has been years since I’ve played card games, but it was fun to pass the time in good company. We also played “B.S.” which I wasn’t very good at because I am a horrible liar and not very good at keeping a poker face. No surprise that I lost at that game.

The plane was not only over booked, but also over weight which created further delay in us taking off from Minneapolis. Ugh!

Once they figured out how to close the door to the small plane we were flying, things went smoothly. Considering we were loaded up with 30 passengers and bags of hockey gear, the flight was again turbulent free. No complaints about that, considering I don’t like to fly in the first place.

We landed in Duluth at 11:30am and waiting for our bags to come down the conveyor belt. Once again, some of our bags didn’t arrive, including mine. I was 0 for 2 on the weekend for luggage…at least the Beavers powerplay was better than that! Oh, well, I could think of worse things happening.

As I write this we are on the last leg of this very long road trip. On a bus to Bemidji with a stop in Grand Rapids to pick up lunch…pizzas from Sammie’s. Then nap the rest of the ride.

We began at 4am and will probably get back home by 4pm…12 hours, wow! Life on the road isn’t easy, but at least I was in good company. Thanks to the Beaver coaches who take good care of all of us while we’re far from Bemidji.