A wonderful opportunity came up this summer, to be one of a group of folks from Brownwood to attend a conference in Nashville to help select the concerts for the Brownwood Area Live On Stage concert series for 08-09--community concert series. Not only do we get 2 and a half days of entertainment, but we get to stay in the Opryland Gaylord hotel. WOW! what a place.
The plane ride from DFW was fairly uneventful---Nikki got us to the airport w/ plenty of time, I read some in my new Harry Potter book, boarding was smooth w/ the "home printed" boarding passes. We were about 30 minutes away from landing when the pilot came on to tell us that there was some sort of "freak" storm over Nashville and we would just wait it out. A little while later, he said that the Nashville airport was closed for awhile and we were running out of fuel, so we'd head to Memphis. My knowledge of geography stinks, and I really have no concept if that is a long way or just a short distance--perhaps I should study up on where I'm heading before I get on a plane.
Anyway---we land in Memphis and the pilot tells us that we'll wait here til he is allowed to take us back to Nashville. And we wait and we wait and we wait (in the plane). Folks all around us are letting their friends and relatives know what is happening via cell phones. I read some more. About 2 hrs later, the pilot says that things are better at Nashville, and we have more fuel now, so we're going back. We were supposed to land at 10 minutes til 3 and we arrived just after 6. It is good that we were a day early and in no hurry.
The hotel/resort/convention is amazingly beautiful. It is very commericial -shops everywhere among the greenery and flowers--and COLD.
We finally ate supper about 7:30 at a lovely steak place which, as was expected, was VERY VERY EXPENSIVE. After that we walked around for about an hour and came back to the room. The hotel is so large that each section is designated with an area name--ours is Magnolia. So you can't find your room until you can find the area, then you find the correct elevator,and then the correct floor.
More later---today we're going to the Opryland Mall-- E
1 comment:
Love the title!
You actually weren't even close to almost out of fuel. They are required to have enough fuel to get there, have 45 minutes of hold time, then enough to get to their planned alternate, and another 45 to hold there. Then they throw an extra few thousand pounds on "for the wife and kids".
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