Matt's Texas Adventure.
|
by
Matt
Published on September 12th, 2007, 9:41 am Rift: Travel |
We get within 100 miles of Dallas and the pilot informs us that we've been put into a holding pattern because of severe weather in Dallas. We circle for about 20 minutes when the pilot informs us we've been diverted to Long View. Long View is on the TX-LA border. Can you say swamps and bogs? They call it Long View because that's exactly what it is. Extremely flat, not many trees. If there's not a building in your way, you can see quite a ways. It was a very small commuter airport. Terminal was air conditioned and had comfortable seating. But anything else to do consisted of one TV broadcasting CNN and some vending machines. That's it. I thought about renting a car and driving to Austin but it was about a 4-5 hour drive.
We finally get the call to head back to Dallas. We land and a new storm rolls in. DFW (Dall Fort Worth Airport) is huge. You have to taxi a good 10 minutes to get from the runway to any gate. We finally are pulling up to our gate, about 50 yards to go when we stop. Pilot announces the ramp has been closed due to lightning. Ground personnel not allowed on the ramp. So there we sit for 20 minutes, 50 yards short of our gate. Finally we get cleared to pull in.
Dallas is nothing less then chaos. Announcements constantly, gate changes, people running around in every direction. All flights were held, late, or just plain canceled. I find a monitor and my connecting flight is leaving a 1pm. Cool. But what time is it now in Dallas? 12:50. Doh! Where is the gate? 2 terminals over DOH!!!
I due my sprint through the airport. DFW has this neat rapid transit monorail trail to move you from terminal to terminal quickly and efficiently. Of course it's only effective if you get on the train going in the direction you need. Eventually, I get to the gate, sweating, in near panic because I did not want to miss that flight. I look at the flight info: delayed 1 hour. Cripes. I relax but don't dare venture from the gate longer than enough time to go to bathroom and back. It's a good thing becaue when the plane arrived, it changed gates and was bordering with about 5 minutes notice. I finally get under way and arrive at my appointment about 6 hours after the scheduled time.
Luckily the folks were very understanding. I extended my stay the next day so I could finish meeting everyone. Nice group of people and everything went extremely well. The trip home was uneventful although felt a little odd flying on September 11.
