Flights you don't want to be on, and the rest of MPLS day one.

[jbsegal]

So, here I am in MPLS (Well, East St. Paul) at the lovely house of ivorjawa and snapdoolie and let me tell you - it was a lot more interesting getting here than I really appreciate...

Chicago was living up to its name today...it was very very windy. I gather that gusts were up to 40mph or so at times...

Our approach into ORD was bumpy, to say the least. It was probably the rockiest hunk of plane flight I've ever been on...as we got closer to the ground, it got worse.

This peaked as we were about to touch down...we're inches from the tarmac and the plane dips sharply to the left, touching one (set of) wheel(s) down. Suddenly, the engines rev sharply and we climb away from there, very very rapidly.

A few minutes later, we're in the air, circling around Chicago (and getting a FABULOUS view of the city, I must say...) and the captain comes on and says sorry, wind shear hit, we're heading back in on a different runway...

That's nice, but in the mean time, we're having more of the bumpiest plane flight I've ever been on...I don't puke, but it looks really close there for a few moments.

Suffice it to say that we land safe, and the rest of the trip is uneventful. Yay. But still, I don't want to do that again.

---

Then, later tonight, I go (dragging my hosts) to see Shooglenifty at The Cedar Cultural Center. They proceed to again kick some serious ass...the show starts at 7:48 and ends at 10:40, with about a 20m intermission in there...so about 2.5 hours of totally kick-ass neo-trad acid croft. Woo-fuckin-hoo!

(Oh, we 1st had dinner at Hong Kong Noodle...thanks, jencallisto...it was great.)

Of course, my foot still hurts, so I can't really dance (though I can't sit through the whole thing, so I do the best I can for the last 3 songs...) and that sucks...but still, it was fabulous.

Tomorrow? I have no idea...maybe the Minnesota Science Center...or something else...I don't know. Sleep 1st.

Comments

[jencallisto]

you're most welcome, glad you liked it, and that you got to MN safely! :)

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

Ok, that tops my missed-pass landing story... ours flew over the airport 40 feet above the runway before taking off again from midair.

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

I love bumpy airplane rides. Don't know why. I guess it's that whole attacked by a rollercoaster thing again. (Why I like earthquakes, it's the only other time you get attacked by a rollercoaster. As long as the building doesn't collapse on you, or the plane doesn't crash, it's all good. You can't affect it, so you may as well get as much enjoyment out of it as you possibly can. I realise most people are not wired in quite the same way I am, however...)

Hope the rest of the trip is enjoyable.

[electriccat.livejournal.com]

hmm.. I think there's also the Maul of America in Minneapolis, and there's also the Mary Tyler Moore house too, somewhere in the suburbs of Minneapolis.

I've always get a little choked up whenever I fly into ORD. It will always be my "home", much like the way a lot of folks who grew up in NYC, still feel attached to it even years after leaving. The wind is pretty amazing, mostly because the midwest is so darn flat - there's nothing to stop the blast from the jet stream as it comes out of Canada. Tis also what leads Chicago to be so bloody cold in January.

Enjoy your trip!

[cz_unit]

Mmm... Sorry about the hard landing. I remember one time when I flew into Logan and had a window seat. We came in over the water, thenn floated along about 5 feet off the runway. I remember thinking "This is odd" when suddenly the plane came down with a WHAM. I thought I would see the landing gear go straight thru the wings.

Fun fun.
Chris

[tcb.livejournal.com]

what a bloody awful landing.. I think I would have been sufficiently unsettled, too.. *hug*

glad you made it safely, and glad shoogle was fun!

enjoy mpls!

[coraline]

have i mentioned already how INCREDIBLY JEALOUS i am of you for getting to go to the BiL show?
and how i've never gotten to see BiL live and probably never will?

sigh.

say hi to neil and jane (yolen) if you see them :)

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

3/17's a Thursday next year...and I know from experience that it's possible to fly in on the day of the show and stay at an airport hotel and fly back the next day...:)

Or take 2 days off and then you get the weekend, too.

It's not that hard. :)

If I see them, I'll say hi. :)

[xeger.livejournal.com]

Everytime I scroll past your heading, I keep on wondering how you've managed to shoehorn yourself into multi-protocol label-switching [ and then it becomes obvious...]