Flying in earlier in the day to Minneapolis via Southwest from a 2 am wake up and a 6:15am flight, Mike and I arrived 2 hours early from a great day of Internet Marketing meetings to catch our 7:15pm flight to Milwaukee. Mike being Mike Frey our new CEO personally discovering my explanation of a typical power meeting day.
Thinking that we were continuing Southwest to our next destination we returned our Hot Rod and proceeded to the closest terminal to check our golf clubs. Once hitting a dead end around the ticketing counter for Delta airlines we were instructed by a very confident traveler from Seattle to take the tram which we never knew existed to another airport.
Reluctantly Mike and I boarded the tram, which lead us to a train to terminal 1 to hit ticketing for Southwest and after leaving the train and up an elevator and over an escalator through an overly hot abandoned parking lot (which by Mike’s estimation appeared to be a par 7 away) with luggage and golf clubs in tow we hit another set of
elevators that took us ultimately to the Southwest area. As we approached the terminal I was looking at the departure boards and commented to a mike that I was not seeing our flight destination or time on the boards.
We arrived to the ticketing counter perplexed and pulled out our itinerary only to reveal that we were to catch a Delta flight and not Southwest. I immediately began to roar with laughter since we were at that counter 20 minutes and several modes of transportation earlier. I then told Mike I am going to the bathroom….I will be back.
When I returned, Mike was smiling and the back of his shirt revealed a nice soaked image in the outline of his backpack that obviously stood out once he took off his back pack. We both got another chuckle from his sweaty back as we were contemplating our next brilliant move. Mike was advised that we could take a cab at this point as opposed to reliving the last 20 calorie burning minutes…..due to time restraints we elected to take a cab.
Arriving at the cab stand the first cab was not able to accommodate our golf clubs, fortunately another cab was close by and we loaded up and headed out. Despite the cab driver knowing exactly where we needed to go we began to question him when we actually left the airport and got on a major highway. He assured us that he was heading to the correct location. Sure enough after a 10 minute cab ride we were back to Delta.
Once we got through security we rushed to the gate and upon arrival realized that our flight had an hour delay…..laughter once again erupted and we were fortunate enough to have had a bar next to our gate of which we needed desperately and utilized fully.
Needless to say we made our flight and the trip was a success and we truly maximized our early arrival time at the Minneapolis Airport(s).
