At the end of October, Jerry Groskruetz and I traveled to Louisville, Kentucky, for the annual National FFA Convention and Expo. While traditionally the transportation to and from Louisville has been pretty simple, this year getting there reminded me a bit of the 1987 movie "Trains, Planes, and Automobiles."

The plan was to leave Faribault in the morning on Wednesday, drive to the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, have a short layover in Chicago before boarding for Louisville, and to arrive at the convention in the early afternoon to get checked in and start our work. I was rather happy that this year's flight didn't require us to leave Faribault until 6:30AM, because in the past, Jerry has booked much earlier flights. We went through security as usual, grabbed some coffee, and hopped on the first plane. We were told that there would be a delay in landing because of some VIP activity in Chicago, but it sounded like all of the connecting flights would be held. Once in Chicago, we started looking for the next gate, only to learn that our connecting flight had not been held and we missed the flight. We were quickly assigned to another flight later that afternoon, which had us arriving in Louisville later then we hoped for, but it wasn't a tremendous setback.

We ran into some fellow Minnesota broadcasters headed to the FFA Convention that we see every year and were chatting over a late lunch when we got a call about the afternoon flight. It had been canceled. We inquired about other flights, but were told that the earliest we could fly to Louisville would be the following day, and we wouldn't arrive until early afternoon. With flights booked to leave Louisville early Friday morning, that would only leave us with half a day at the convention, and a half-day would not be enough to meet with all of the area students we were sent to interview.

After a brief discussion and a couple of phone calls, it was decided we would rent a car and drive the remaining distance, which was about a five-hour drive. Jerry booked a midsize car while we were taking the shuttle from the airport to the car rental company. By this time it was late afternoon, and rush hour would be starting so Jerry offered to take the first stretch of road. Once outside of Chicago, we stopped for coffee and I took over driving. I was counting on Jerry to serve as my co-pilot and navigator, but he fell asleep on the job. Literally. Lucky for me, it was a pretty easy route to follow, despite some road construction. About 40 minutes outside of Louisville, we stopped to stretch our legs and grab a water, and Jerry slid back into the driver's seat. We pulled into Louisville and found our hotel shortly before 10PM.

It was certainly not the route we had planned to take to Louisville, but we got there and were able to complete our task. We had a great time seeing all of the area students and learning more about their involvement with the FFA! Next year, we'll be headed to Indianapolis, Indiana, with the FFA Convention and the good news is, should plans go awry, it's two hours closer!

Airplane. Photo: Kelly Krage/ Townsquare Media
Airplane. Photo: Kelly Krage/ Townsquare Media
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Entering Louisville. Photo: Kelly Krage/ Townsquare Media
Entering Louisville. Photo: Kelly Krage/ Townsquare Media
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