Travel Gone Wrong

Adam and I are reading a book called By the Seat of My Pants: Humorous Tales of Travel and Misadventure. Published by Lonely Planet, the book is a compilation of essays documenting travel adventures gone wrong. Imagine the worst possible travel scenarios accompanied by a great sense of humor (at least in hindsight) and you’ve got the makings of this book. Adam and I lived our own travel nightmare about six years ago. It is funny now but at the time we weren’t laughing.

Six years ago Adam was wrapping up his undergraduate studies and was in the process of applying for a full time position in youth ministry. We narrowed our choices to a few churches. One of those churches was in a small town in Nebraska. Despite the fact that there was nothing in the town, the church vision fit ours so we decided to take the next step. We scheduled the weekend and the church booked our plane tickets. The weekend of our trip the weather turned nasty. The entire Midwest was placed under a winter storm warning. The church called and asked if we wanted to postpone our visit. It wasn’t possible for us to postpone. Time was running out in our selection process and we either had to go or cross the church off our list.

Several flights at the airport had already been canceled. After checking that our flight wasn’t canceled we made our way to the airport. Our flight was delayed by several hours and as we boarded the plane we heard the announcement that ours would be the last flight to Omaha that evening. We arrived in Omaha and made our way to the car rental counter where our Toyota Camry was waiting. Adam had been confident that we would be able to upgrade to an SUV which would be more suitable for driving in the snow. The rental agency had an upgrade available but it was reserved for a passenger on a later flight. We tried to reason that there wouldn’t be a later flight (because all later flights had been canceled) but the reservations person wouldn’t budge.

As we headed onto the highway the snow continued to fall steadily. We had at least another four hours of driving. By the time we reached our destination it was after midnight and the snow drifts were literally up to our eyeballs. We pulled into the parking lot of the only hotel in town, Super 8, and breathed a sigh of relief. We had made it. The hotel clerk warmly greeted us by name as we walked in the door. Apparently the whole town was waiting for word of our safe arrival.

Adam slept soundly that night but I woke up to the sound of men walking the hallway. It was barely morning and the men were leaving to go hunting. So much for sleeping. I did eventually get back to sleep but when I woke up later to use the bathroom I discovered that our carpet was soaked and water was seeping in from the hallway. During the night a pipe had burst. Day two was off to an interesting start.

In daylight it was clear that Adam and I were far from home. We had thought that we wanted to relocate to a small town but while taking a tour (it was scheduled to take an hour but after ten minutes we had seen the entire town, twice) we had second thoughts. Later in the day we met with the candidate committee but thought it was odd that the pastor was absent. The next day was Sunday and after church we were invited to the pastor’s home for dinner. The dinner table was extremely formal. Men sat on one side and women on the other. The children (college-aged) did not speak unless they were spoken to first. Adam’s most memorable part of dinner was when the pastor offered him a man-sized bib to wear while eating spaghetti. Needless to say we were not picking up good vibes. After Sunday dinner it was time to drive back to Omaha. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough. It wasn’t snowing anymore but flights in the Midwest were still being affected by the weekend storm. Once again our plane was delayed. It was late evening when we finally boarded our plane. Adam swears that the airport custodian was the same person conducting random checks at the gate.

Back in our hometown we started feeling better. It had been a l-o-n-g weekend but knowing that we were almost home was comforting. We climbed into a taxi, gave our address and let our guards down enough to nod off to sleep. Adam and I woke up in time to witness the taxi approaching a toll booth. Our hearts sank because there was no toll between the airport and our home…the taxi was traveling in the wrong direction! We were even further from home then when we left the airport. The taxi turned around and then the driver proceeded to tell us that it would cost an extra (ridiculous) amount of money to take us all the way to our address. Adam argued with the driver but to no avail. Refusing to pay the extra money (probably because we didn’t have it), the taxi dropped us off a block away from home. It was bitterly cold and in addition to our luggage we had to carry Megan (still a baby) in her car seat. We reached the apartment frozen from the cold, angry at the taxi driver, exhausted from our journey and defeated. Adam turned to me for the house key. I rummaged through my luggage looking for the house key and I couldn’t find it! It was too late at night to call our landlord. At this point the tears began and Adam and I weren’t talking to each other.  In desperation I literally unpacked dumped my luggage in the driveway until I located the key.

The next morning Adam called the church in Nebraska and politely told them “thank you but no thank you.” We lovingly refer to that trip as the trip from hell.