Saturday, September 17, 2011

HOME OF THE IRISH

Thursday, September 15 – We added another university to our National University Tour....Notre Dame. It is located 30 minutes up the road in South Bend. What a beautiful campus.

1a-flower-garden

We like to see universities that are consistent with their architecture. Notre Dame does that with the sand color brick and slate roof buildings. Acres of green space, an abundance of shade trees, and beautiful landscaping has us adding Notre Dame to our “beautiful campus” list.

We picked up a map at the visitors center and asked the young men working the desk for recommended “must sees” on campus. He recommended a visitors parking lot that was centrally located and permitted an easy walking tour of the campus.

First stop was the football stadium. This “house that Rockne built” is the legendary home of the Fighting Irish football team.

8-stadium

7-knute-rockne

Let us not forgot Lou Holtz.
9-lou-holtz

Unfortunately, it was all locked up and we couldn't get in to see the field. The crews were busy preparing the facility for this weeks game. Can you believe that publish a booklet of activities for each home game. What an exciting weekend for young fans!

One of the “must sees” on Paul's list was Touch down Jesus.

10-touchdown-Jesus


Built in 1888, Sorin Hall was the first residence hall with private rooms, and its residents were originally selected by academic rank.
31-building

For those unfamiliar with Notre Dame football, this is a huge tiled mural of Jesus located high on the wall of the library. In the mural, Jesus has his arms raised high (much like a referee signally a touchdown). It's the location of the library that is important. It is located just north of the stadium directly in line with the end zone. When the team scores a touchdown, kicks a field goal, or kicks an extra point, Jesus is there to signal the team's good fortune.....”TOUCHDOWN!”

The Main Building is better known as “The Golden Dome.”

13-main-hall

This is the center of administration, teaching, and important exhibits of art and Notre Dame history. The building is beautiful inside.

17-main-hall-ceiling

18-main-hall-wall

17-a-ceiling

19-looking-down

It is topped by a gilded dome and a 19-foot-tall, 4,000-pound statue of Mary, the Mother of God, “Notre Dame” (“Our Lady”). The Golden Dome was added to this building in 1882 and was most recently regilded in 2005.

13a-a-top-dome

The Hammes Notre Dame Bookstore serves as the headquarters for students' textbooks. This two-story building also houses a HUGE selection of hats, t-shirts, sweat shirts, and other memorabilia for the Notre Dame fan. It is one of the largest bookstores we've seen on our campus tours.

1-bookstore

5-inside-bookstorre

The Basilica of the Sacred Heart was consecrated in 1888 and is the center of Catholic liturgy and worship on campus. What a gorgeous cathedral!

20-cathedral

Priceless stained glass windows, fresco paintings, gold gilded statues, and an amazing alter makes this a wonderful house of worship.

21-1871-inside

25-inside

26-statue

Ceiling
24-ceiling

We spent four hours strolling the campus and enjoyed every minute. With 11,000 students the campus did not feel over-crowed. There was an atmosphere of hospitality and community spirit. A fun morning on a beautiful fall day. We felt like a college student again!

Fall has arrived on campus!
30-fall-tree

We also continued our search for a new recliner by stopping at the Lazy Boy Recliner Store. Unfortunately, we found out that Lazy Boy does not make a “wall hugger” recliner that swivels. You have to get a “rocker-recliner” if you want it to swivel, and that eliminates the “wall hugger” feature. That's too much space required for placement in a motor home.

We decided to return to Lambright's Comfort Chairs to re-examine the Amish custom built chairs. This satisfied all our requirements.....swivel, wall-hugger, recliner, and only twenty-six inches wide. We originally felt they were a little expensive, but after comparative shopping they were less expensive than other new chairs. We now own a new recliner! The back comes off easily making it fit comfortably in our hatchback Honda CRV and easily fit through the door of the motor home.

It especially made it nice for Marsha to help Paul carry it in the doorway. Looks great by our computer desk.

chair

Paul relaxing.
paul-chair

Paul REALLY relaxing. This is a real picture…not a simulation!
paul-sleeping

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see ya'll back real soon. Have a great day!

10 comments:

  1. Nice tour, never thought about visting there. Will have to add it to the list:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great tour of Notre Dame. Paul's chair looks a lot like Jim's. Jim's was also built by the Amish and he loves it. But his is bigger and it has a built in tray that can swing up or down out of the way. He loves it. And I see Paul has already figured out that that handle on the right side is the sleep lever.

    ReplyDelete
  3. There are some gorgeous universities around. Their campus looks like a tourist attraction. Oops... maybe it is.

    We learned about the back coming off recliners to get them in the motorhome door when we were looking. We figured that was better than going through the window. Love your chair.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow a lot of history there and if the walls could talk.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Paul needed that "relaxing" after the campus tour and hauling the chair, right?

    ReplyDelete
  6. What a great tour of the 'Home of the Irish'. I really enjoyed all the photos of Notre Dame as it is one university campus I've always wanted to visit!

    Congrats on the new recliner - sure looks comfy!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Questions, questions..do you have a follower's list? We'd like to sign up. Second, I'm South Bend native (28 years) and loved seeing your tour. We have a Tiffin Phaeton, 40 ft., and would like to swap out our couch for chairs and a table. Did you have any trouble getting the chair thru the door? How in the world do they get the couch out? Did you have the desk custom made? Thanks for any advice on this! Jeannie from http://whereseldo.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  8. Looking at your states map says "Toni and Doug must show us the Pacific Northwest"!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks for the tour of Notre Dame....what an absolutely beautiful campus. Your pictures did a wonderful job of capturing its beauty.

    So happy to hear you found a recliner. That comparative shopping really helps define the best choice, doesn't it? That chair looks really comfortable!

    Blessings...

    ReplyDelete
  10. Glad you enjoyed Notre Dame. We too were amazed with how beautiful the campus is. You taught us something we didn't know...touch down Jesus. John put the mural on our blog but we didn't know the name. Perfect fit!

    Glad you found a chair. I don't know if you saw ours on our blog but they are very similar, only the design of the back. We purchased them at Brad and Hall in Elkhart. They are an RV furniture place also. We love our chairs, especially the swival and narrow size. Expensive but sooo worth it.

    I see many good naps in the future.
    Safe travels!
    John and Pam Wright
    ohtheplacestheygo.wordpress.com

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for leaving us a comment. We enjoy reading them. Have a great day!