I have successfully returned home, so I can now blog about travel mishaps without jinxing my trip.
My favorite story takes place one summer when I was starting junior high school. We left town for a month each summer to tour the country and visit relatives. That year, we headed West.
Most trips involved some sort of car breakage and this one was a doosey. We were driving through Wyoming, just reaching the top of a mountain, when the car died. I was about 12, my sister 10, and my brother 5. The five of us were stuck on the top of the mountain for hours. It was the first time I had to use nature as an outhouse (sheltered life, huh?). We had to come up with something to occupy our time, so we wrote postcards. We were not allowed to tell Grandma that we were stuck on the top of a mountain and no one would stop for us because it was too hard to get back started.
Our savior was a Pespi truck driver who stopped and said he would get us a towtruck at the bottom. Whew. We were saved!!!! About an hour later, a truck comes, hooks up our car, and we pile into the cab with him. I had the misfortune of getting to sit squished up against him. Teenage Trauma!!!
Any way, he told us about the history of the area, pointed out the really big drop offs, and let us out at Ten Sleep, Wyoming. It was named that because it took people ten nights' sleeps to get there.
Movie of the Day: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.
3 comments:
Any one else have awful travel stories?
Too many to count.
My parents, brother and I crossed Guatemala under the cloak of night because there was going to be a guy at the border to help us get out. We drove a huge van packed with our stuff. We got out of Guatemala ok and drove through Mexico and the U.S. to Minnesota (out of all places) for reasons too long to explain. It took two weeks. The "funny" part is that while driving through the back roads of Mexico, we would stop and picnic off the side of the road. It was so pretty. Only later would we learn that we were in an area known for pirates who would often murder entire families just like ours and take their cars. I imagine we were like big plump chickens, a van FULL of goodies, completely ignorant. And lucky.
Wow! "big plump chickens" cool image (and sad/scary too!). I'm glad you all made it safely to the "frozen" north!
Post a Comment