I wish I could have got to this sooner, but things have been really busy at
 work since I returned from my trip. As you may know I was planning to attend
 the Phinal Phour with my good friends Erik and Paula Biever, when Paula
 became ill right before the trip I had to scramble to find a couple of new
 roommates. Luckily for me, Pam and Lisa Sweeney were willing to share a room
 in Albany. I also managed to sell Erik and Paula's tickets for them and
 another ticket for a friend I met on the 1987 Phinal Phour trip to
 Detroit! It was a pretty busy two days before I left. I will do a diary of the
 trip sort of like David Parter's which I have enjoyed reading so far.
 
 The flight from Minneapolis to Newark was fine.  I was sitting in the
 Continental Express waiting area for my connecting flight to Albany, when I
 heard a name I knew being paged! The airline was paging a Mark Grassel!
 Imagine my surprise...I was hoping that it was the hockey-l Mark G. so that
 the next part of my trip wouldn't be so boring, but it was not the Mark "snake
 in the" Grassl we all know here on hockey-l.
 
 We had to take a small shuttle bus that was parked outside the terminal to
 the prop jet which was parked down the runway a bit. Actually there were two
 mini-busses that we were all crammed into. It was also a bit confusing as the
 airline decided to load about eight different flights all within the span of
 15 minutes! The plane was packed. Only about four seats out of 46 were
 empty. There was a father with his two young rink rats who really liked my "I
 cheer for Minnesota and whoever is playing Wisconsin" button on my jacket. The
 flight was very bumpy which made me a little nervous as I have been known to
 suffer from motion sickness, but we landed without incident.
 
 I managed to get on the ground without falling down the tiny staircase when
 getting off the plane. Beth Weise was there waiting for me and saw me right
 away (my maroon Minnesota jacket is easy to spot). While we were waiting for
 the luggage, a man who said he was from Mankato, asked me what happened to the
 Gophers, and why weren't they here in Albany? This was not a good sign, if
 strangers from Minnesota were going to be asking about the team what next? It
 took longer to get the baggage off the plane than it did to drive from the
 airport to the Red Roof Inn. I got checked in quickly and settled in for the
 night. I gave fellow H-ler James Bradshaw a call over at the Hilton and we
 made plans for lunch on Thursday before the first game.I wasn't sure how I
 would get downtown the next morning, but wasn't worried about it.  I also
 called and left a message for Tony Hejna on his answering machine. I
 turned in early to rest up for all the activities that were planned for the
 next day.
 (end of part one)
 
 Carol
 U of M
 GO Gophers!!!