Wild day: Plane, train & automobiles

Saturday was one of the 10 wildest days of my life. Probably top five. I woke up before sunrise in Milwaukee. I laid my head down in Phoenix. In between I saw things I’d never seen, experienced basketball in myriad ways and had more adventures than Steve Martin and John Candy ever thought about.

It was all part of trying to get from the Oklahoma State men’s NCAA Tournament site to the OSU women’s. With the OSU men in Milwaukee, the Ford Center regional, the OU women’s regional at Lloyd Noble Center, spring football practice and being a staff member short to start with, we hatched this plan. When the Cowboys were finished in Milwaukee, win or lose, I would get to the desert and catch up with the Cowgirls.

OSU’s 64-59 loss to Georgia Tech meant I could get to Tempe, Ariz., in time for OSU’s 5:15 p.m. (Arizona time) tipoff against Chattanooga. So I got up at 6:15 a.m. Saturday — with only three hours sleep – and comrade John Helsley drove me through the snow to the airport.

I had forgotten to check in on Southwest until late Friday night – because I am challenging George Costanza for lord of the idiots — so I was No. 123 in line. Those Southwest planes only seat 137, which meant I was doomed to a middle seat for the 200-minute flight. I tried to pay the $15 upgrade to board early, but no go. Those were all taken.

So I waited and mentally prepared myself. And darned if I didn’t walk in and there was an empty aisle seat in the second row. I sat down, then noticed there was an empty window seat in the opposite second row. Since I was going to try to sleep, I wanted a window. So I got up to move over and noticed the FRONT row window seat on the other side was open. The front row has the extra leg room. And there was overhead space for my laptop, which always is a problem with the front row.

I think I’ve figured it out. Milwaukee is a new Southwest city. Southwest has been flying out of there only a few months. I don’t think people have the open seating figured out. It’s every man for himself. If you’re boarding after the top 60 or so, it’s like inbounding a basketball. Throw it to the first man open. Take the first good seat you see.

Turns out my front row seat was a little crowded; a large woman and her husband were sitting next to me, but I didn’t care. I slept a little, read a little and was fired up that our master plan was going to work. I had escaped Milwaukee and its potentially bad weather.

Landed in Las Vegas at 10:15 a.m. Pacific time. During daylight savings time, Arizona is Pacific time, too, so I was seven hours away from tip. In great shape. Until I saw that my 11:45 flight to Phoenix was delayed until 2 p.m. U-oh. This is one of those weather deals; a thunderstorm in Birmingham can back up a plane that eventually will land in Portland. Snow in Providence delays a flight in Lubbock.

I made a quick decision. My reasonable knowledge of American geography told me Phoenix was drivable from Vegas. I called home, and Trish the Dish looked it up for me: 287 miles. I could drive in four hours, I figured. I called Hertz; they gave me a good deal on a one-way rental, $135.

I asked the Southwest gate agent what would happen to my bag that was waiting to be taken to Phoenix. He said it still would go, even if I didn’t. So I told Southwest to write me off the list, I jumped on the train that takes you out to the front terminal and I hopped on the rental car shuttle to go get some wheels.

Twenty minutes later, I was on a Las Vegas freeway, listening to the NCAA Tournament and fired up about my excellent adventure. I was about to see a part of America I never had seen. It was 11:15 a.m. I was 290 miles from Arizona State University.

HOOVER DAM

We’ve got bridges to nowhere in Alaska. We’ve got an interstate highway between Lubbock and Amarillo. We’ve got an interstate that goes 610 miles from Moorhead, Minn., to Billings, Mont., without sniffing a city with 100,000 people.

But there is no freeway between Las Vegas and Phoenix. Instead, you get to go along Hoover Dam.

I’d heard about Hoover Dam my whole life, and it was fun to see. Impressive. Huge. Beautiful. It was built in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, 30 miles southeast of Vegas, and sends electricity all over southern California and elsewhere. Traffic slows to about 10 mph 2-3 miles before you reach the dam; tourists are everywhere.

Trouble was, as I started going up and down and around the mountains south of Vegas, my rental car, a Chevy Malibu, started doing weird things. Sputtering going uphill. Jerking like humans do when we cough. And then it would be OK for a few miles. I didn’t know what to do, other than I knew everyone wanting to see Hoover Dam wasn’t too thrilled with me stopping in the middle of the road, so I kept going.

Saw the dam. It was cool. Car kept jerking. I kept going. When I hit some level land, the car would run, but it was doing other funny things. Running at about 6,500 RPM and would max out at 60 MPH. I had it floor-boarded to do that.

South of Hoover Dam is desert, for about 79 miles, when you reach Kingman, Ariz., a decent-sized town.

I called Hertz. Well, I sort of called Hertz. When you call Hertz, you wait. You wait and wait and wait. They put you on hold and play the most irritating music. When a live Hertz person finally came on the phone, I told her my problem. I asked if there was a Hertz counter in Kingman, and could I switch out the car there, if I could make it. She said if I got there by 2 p.m. and that she would call them and let them know I was coming. But first, she wanted me to talk to Hertz roadside assistance. OK. So she transferred me.

I sputtered down the road. Sixty mph for awhile, then chug-chug-chug. Sixty mph, then chug-chug-chug. All the while I’m on hold for Hertz roadside assistance. I drove 10 miles. Fifteen miles. Twenty miles. I got within 30 miles of Kingman and hung up. Got the phone number to Hertz in Kingman and called them. A very nice girl said she would switch out a car and told me how to get there.

So I staggered into Kingman, found the Hertz and got a new car, a Mercury Milan. It was 1:30 p.m. I was 202 miles from the Arizona State University campus.

RADIO GAMES

The NCAA Tournament saved me. I don’t like driving. I really don’t like it on little sleep, especially in the daytime. But March Madness on the radio was a blessing. I saw the great American desert and listened to hoops on Westwood One radio.

And I heard all that’s great and awful about listening to a ballgame on the radio. I listened to the St. Mary’s-Villanova game. I heard the end of Butler-Murray State. I listed to all of Kansas-Northern Iowa.

And the quality of a radio voice can make all the difference. The Villanova-St. Mary’s game was a classic. A No. 2 seed knocked off by a mid-major. A 3-point bank in the final two minutes broke a tie. Huge game. And Bob Papa made it sound like it was a Wizards-Pacers game in January. No emotion. No excitement. No nothing.

I don’t know who called the Murray State-Butler game, but it was totally different. Excellent description. Great drama. Really put me there. And Kansas-Northern Iowa, well, Brad Sham was fantastic. Here was a game for the ages, an historic game, and I never once wished I was watching on television. I could tell the importance of plays and the wow-factor of plays by Sham’s voice. Wonderful job.

In a day of madness of me and a day of madness on the court, basketball on the radio kept me sane.

DESERT LIFE

In Kingman, the new Hertz they gave me wasn’t full of gas. In fact, it had about a quarter of a tank. I stopped at Arby’s to go to the bathroom — I’d needed to go since the Vegas airport — and get what would be my only meal of the day. So I ate a couple of beef’n cheddars, listened to basketball and marveled at the wonders of a well-driving car.

It was sort of like Castaway. Remember the great Tom Hanks movie? One of my favorite parts was at the end, after his rescue, after he had been alone on the island for five years. Hanks stops by an ice dispenser and marvels at the magic. Ice whenever you want it.

Same with me heading out of Kingman. A car that goes uphill without sputtering. A car that goes 70 mph when you want it to or 50 if you pull off the gas. It’s the darndest thing. I still have no idea how cars work. But I know that I love it when they do.

I knew I should have gotten some gas when I stopped at Arby’s, but I was in a hurry. Put some miles behind us. I started getting pretty low on U.S. 93, the desert highway that goes from Kingman to Phoenix, and the Milan started showing me the miles to go before empty. 40something, when I saw it. Not long after I went through a little village with a Gulf station. I was going to stop, but it was right at the end of the Butler-Murray State game and I didn’t want to miss it. So I said I would get the next one.

Uh-oh. Maybe someone someday can explain why there’s no freeway between Vegas and Phoenix, and maybe the same person can explain why no one builds a gas station in the middle of the desert. You’d have lines like during the Arab oil embargo.

That miles to empty number kept dropping and dropping; 24, 17, 13, 8, 6, 4, 3, 1, 0. Zero miles to empty. I was driving on fumes. For most of that journey, I had no cell phone service, which meant I was bound to have to rely on the kindness of strangers. Finally, I got some cell service, so I called AAA. I’m a long-time member, and I figured they could tell me how many miles before the next gas station.

AAA’s main number transferred me to their Arizona office, except it was the Florida office, and those people had little idea about how to survive in the Arizona desert. So finally I got transferred to the Arizona office, and I was explaining my plight to some gal when I saw a beacon. The sign I had been searching for for an hour. GAS. I pulled in and saw a gas pump at an old compound that was half junkyard, half towing service, half I don’t know what.

Some guy came out, I asked if he had gas and he said he sold two-gallon gas cans for $20. I told him I didn’t need the can but I needed the gas. I didn’t tell him I would have paid $200 for two gallons.

So he goes to fill me up, and he can’t get the spout into the gas tank. The hole wouldn’t give. The gas would just spill out. We poked. We prodded. We read the Milan manual, which bragged about some kind of new fuel filler system but didn’t tell you how the heck to get gas in the tank.

“Never seen anything like this,” said the guy So I pulled out the trusty cell phone, called the office and got the phone number to Reynolds Mercury back home. I called Reynolds, got a salesman on the phone and told him my plight. He said that in the trunk, with the jack, was a special funnel that fit into the tank. That’s what you had to have when using a gas can. He said it kept people from siphoning gas.

Siphoning gas? Who siphons gas? I haven’t heard of anyone siphoning gas in 30 years. My uncles talk about it from time to time. They used to do it. In 1949! Not in 2010.

Some things don’t need fixing. The application of gas nozzles into gas tanks is one of those things.

But I gave the guy 20 bucks, was happy to do it and away I went. About 10 miles down the road was the town of Wickenburg. I gassed up and got back on my way. It was 3:45 p.m. I was 71 miles from Arizona State University.

OPENING TIP

I had been in one airplane, two airports, three rental cars, one airport tram and a rental car bus. Things were starting to swirl in my head. But the original Hertz guy in Vegas had told me something I remembered. U.S. 93 when it reaches Greater Phoenix goes through a bunch of sleepy suburbs. Sunrise. Sun City. Places, he said, where old people drive slow and speed humps rule. He told me to get off south of Wickenburg and go east over to I-17. I would avoid the slowdown and get to the fast lane quicker.

Made sense to me and looked good on the map. So I turned off and headed toward I-17. Hoping it might be 5-6 miles. The first sign I saw said 30 miles to I-17. Uh-oh. I had just added 30 miles to my trip, and even making up time, that put my tipoff in jeopardy.

I finally reached I-17 and headed south. I called OSU publicist Ryan Cameron, who was at the arena, and he put on the phone with an Arizona State guy who told me the best way to get there. I drove into Phoenix, switched to I-10, then took Loop 202 and exited right at the campus. Parked, walked to the arena, was told the media entrance was on the other side, went to the other side and was told I had been in the right place the first time, and finally got admitted about 5:13 p.m. I got my media credential, walked straight onto the floor just as the starting lineup introductions concluded and took a seat.

Had it all the way.

OH YEAH, THE BALLGAME

The OSU-Chattanooga was completely amazing. OSU was awful in the first half, spectacular in the second half. Easy game to write about. I was sort of like the Milan in the desert; I was going on fumes.

When I had it all written up, I left the arena, got to my car and drove to Sky Harbor Airport, my third airport of  the day. I parked in the garage, went to baggage claim and sure, enough, there was my bag. I went back to the massive parking garage — Vegas and Phoenix both have huge airports — and, you guessed it. I couldn’t find my car. I was like the Seinfeld crew, in that episode where they walked all over the mall garage, looking for their car.

I knew I had parked on Level 4 East, row E. But I couldn’t find it. I spent probably 10 minutes looking, then went to the other side of the garage and found out I had been totally turned around. I barely knew what city I was in, much less what parking spot, so I didn’t even get mad at myself.

Then I drove to the rental car center, which seems about 25 miles from the airport but probably is about two, and switched out cars. Hertz is great about doing stuff like one-way rentals. Hertz is not so great about things like a decent rate. So I turned in that car and rented from FOX.

Got a Hyundai, I think it is, though for the life of me I can’t remember what color, and found my Holiday Inn Express. Checked in, found my room and looked at the clock. It was 11:15 p.m. 1:15 a.m. Milwaukee time.

I had seen the dam and the desert. I had damned and deserted a car. I had experienced, with my eyes and my ears, a great day of basketball. I was ready for some sleep.

-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.

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