Day one at the NCAA wrestling meet: Trains and automobiles, no planes

OK, this wasn't the greatest day I've had at the NCAA wrestling tournament.

But now that I'm back in the comfort (?) of my hotel room, it wasn't that bad either.

How can it be bad when you are spending time at one of the best events in sports and with your son?

Today's trip started at 5:30 a.m. when Jim Beer, a former Cedar Rapids Kennedy wrestler who I first met in high school, picked Ben and I  up for the drive to St. Louis. A few wrong turns and about five hours later, we were walking a couple of blocks to the Scotttrade Center for the first round.

No problems so far, except for that side trip when the GPS took us to an address in St. Charles instead of St. Louis.

After the first session, Ben and I headed to our hotel, which we thought was a short trip on the "Metro" train toward the airport and a short jaunt to check-in. Wrong.

Once we finally made it to the hotel - after a too long train ride and a cab fare to backtrack - we found the place a little underwhelming. Clean, but old and, frankly, a bit creepy.

The return trip to downtown St. Louis was an adventure, too, only because we didn't know what to expect. A bus ride to the Metro, however, wasn't too bad and the trip to the arena was fine.

The rain - and hail - didn't help, but it was par for the day.

But we're here, we're watching wrestling and we're spending time with each other, old friends, family and we even ran into a few "old" wrestlers. Former Hawks Jeff McGinness and Randy Lewis were out and about and ex-Cyclone Chris Bono stopped for a visit in the arena.

All's well that ends well, right?