;)
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Posted by Charlie in 1997 Elton John World Tour
Well, we’re flying to Evansville… as it’s a 1,000 mile drive. So Phil, the driver, took us to the airport and then started on his lonely journey! Fargo airport is small… REALLY small. There are 4 gates. And they only open the security screening area when a flight is due to board! But that’s OK, because the plane is really small, too. We barely got on board! Just as we were getting settled in our minute seats, and listening to the pilot’s brief synopsis of the bad weather ahead, when the baggage handler came on board and
announced that the baggage door had come off its runners, and that we would have to wait in the lounge while they fixed it. That was enough for Clive (our resident bad flyer)… actually it was enough for me, too! Once back in the lounge, Keith got on the phone and tried to sort something out.When we heard that announcement that “the mechanic was on his way to the airport and would be there in 20 minutes” the concept of taking this plane started to fade.Keith called Phil, the bus driver, and had him turn around and come back for us (he was already 100 miles out of Fargo). In the meantime, the plane was “fixed”, and took off an hour and 20 minutes LATE, with Davey and John (Mahon) on board, headed for the inevitable snowstorms in Chicago. They would have trouble making their connection on to Evansville, too. The rest of us sat and had lunch in the airport bar, while we waited for the bus to return. We FINALLY left the terminal at 4pm, having retrieved our bags and re-loaded the bus. And we were back on the road! We trundled on, through Minnesota, and into Wisconsin… stopping at a truck stop (the cleanest one I’ve EVER seen) for fuel and dinner at around 10pm. After that, we all watched TV and listened to CDs until, one by one, we went to bed, leaving Phil to drive on through the darkness.
The weather had obviously been bad, as there was plenty of evidence of snow, but we somehow managed to avoid most of the storms, although there was plenty of aftermath. We saw a number of cars & trucks on the side of the road, some of them on their roofs, victims of a heavy storm. Phil finally got us to the hotel at around 7.30am, which was no mean feat.
I had a full breakfast, while waiting for the bags to be delivered to my room, and then I just crawled back into bed and went back to sleep.
;)
