And That's the Way it is

I bought tickets last winter for the Celine Dion concert that was scheduled for October 30th in Minneapolis. Unfortunately, half an hour after I ordered the tickets I realized we would most likely be leaving for conference cross country the next day. I ended up selling my tickets in August (for an $8 profit) which was a good decision, as we ended up leaving the day of the concert. About a month ago, I decided to check TicketMaster, I'm not really sure why, and saw Celine Dion was performing again in Minneapolis on December 18th. I ordered the cheapest tickets, which were located about as high up as you could go. After some investigating, I found out the concert scheduled in October had been postponed due to some kind of throat infection. Fate? I think so!!

Anyways, my friend Andrea and I roadtripped to Minneapolis on Thursday for the concert. I started to regret going to the concert because of the weather forecast and also driving through Minneapolis during rush hour. I was even stressed about the concert waiting in line to get into the arena. But that all changed when we had our tickets scanned. The scanner beeped and the guy told us we would have to go to guest services. I was thinking it was just my luck that our printed off tickets were defective in some way. The guy said we were probably being relocated. After weaving back through hundreds of people waiting in line, we got to guest services. The lady asked us if we were big Celine Dion fans. We said we were, but not over-the-top or obsessive. She then asked us if we were big enough fans to be on the floor- Andrea and I looked at each other and nodded excitedly. Our mangy printed off tickets were then exchanged for two beautiful silver tickets. I think I had a look of utter shock on my face the whole time before the concert started.

I wasn't sure if Celine would have an opener since she is the greatest female singer of all time, but she had a guy named Gordon who plays at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas perform for about thirty minutes. He did imitations of other musicians, which was pretty funny but I wanted Celine to perform so we could get back before the snow hit. She started the show off with "I Drove All Night", which seemed really fitting since we had driven 3 1/2 hours to see her and would be driving all night on the way back to Cedar Falls. The next song she played was "Taking Chances", one of my favorites of her newer songs. It was pretty obvious how much she enjoys performing. After just about every song where she had a really high and long vocal, she would pump her fists in the air like she had just scored a touchdown or something. She played "My Heart Will Go On" as her encore, which was amazing.

After the concert we drove around Minneapolis for half an hour trying to get on the right road. We even took a scenic drive along the river for a few miles until we realized that was not going to get us anywhere. We finally got on 35-W South, and since it hadn't started snowing yet, our only concern was staying awake. After driving for about an hour, it was like we crossed a boundary between no snow and snow everywhere. It wasn't bad at first, but close to the Iowa border it began to drift and turn the interstate into one lane. We poked along at about 40 mph behind a vehicle in front of us. When we got in Iowa, we ended up behind a snow plow. Though it was pretty safe behind the snow plow, we were driving less than 30 mph and at that rate would not be home until 5:00 am, and the blowing snow was starting to affect our depth perception and attentiveness. We made a really good decision and stayed at Country Inn & Suites right next to the Diamond Jo Casino. We drove about an hour and a half the next day and finally made it back to Cedar Falls around noon.

Even with the crappy weather, this was probably about the best experience in my life so far. I think Andrea had a lot of fun too. If nothing else we enjoyed jamming out in her car for 7 hours.