“Do you have any travel horror stories? What do you do when it all goes wrong?”
We have been really lucky and don’t really have any horror stories even though we have traveled a lot. Maybe because we usually see some travel mishaps as more of an adventure than a horror.
In the first years that we were married, we traveled to the beach for a weekend vacation. On the way out of town, our car broke down. We had it towed to our house and since it was a Friday, we knew no one could work on it over the weekend. So, we threw our stuff into the other car, and away we went. We had a wonderful weekend and didn’t worry about the car until we returned home.
One year on the way back from Alaska, we got stuck in O’Hare Airport in Chicago. I dislike that airport tremendously! We had to switch planes there and arrived in the afternoon with an hour layover until our next flight arrived. The flight kept getting delayed and wasn’t canceled until about midnight. Meanwhile, there was a ten-year-old girl who was traveling alone and panicked because she had no idea what was going on, hadn’t eaten, and didn’t know what to do. I finally got her to call her mother after I found out that we were all traveling to the same place in South Carolina. I explained the situation to the mom and got permission to buy her some food (She was a good girl and refused to take food from strangers!). The mom got in touch with a relative in town who showed up at midnight to take the little girl home. The airline didn’t pay attention to her all day and they were even paid extra to take care of her!
On a road trip from Florida back to South Carolina, we were detoured due to terrible wildfires around Florida. In fact, the Daytona 500 was postponed for another day because of the fires and the heat. We were turned off of I-95 and sent across the state to I-75 but along the way, our tire melted, and chunks of rubber were coming off! We were able to get to a service station and bought the last tire he had that fit our car!
Once we visited Paris, France and didn’t have hotel reservations. Not knowing that it was Pentecost weekend and was a busy time in Paris, we had trouble finding a place to stay for the night. We dragged our rolling suitcases around town looking for a place and finally, one hotel helped us. The place we stayed for a week was a wonderful cozy place and it all worked out for the best!
So, thankfully we haven’t faced any horrors and hope we don’t. We do like adventures though!
What travel horrors have you faced? Please share.
Picture courtesy of Pixabay
1 comment:
Pat--We flew on a Thursday. I was visiting a friend in southern France, and they lost all our luggage--my daughter's, my granddaughter's and mine. They found it the next day, but since it was late, and then would be the weekend, they wouldn't deliver it until Monday. My friend was nice enough to drive us to Toulouse (an hour and a half away) to get our stuff on Sunday.
They took us in a room (where all the lost luggage was being stored) that smelled horrible--the worst smell I've ever experienced. (Well, one of the worst.) We asked what the stink was. The airport guy said, "Chicken. Somebody put some cooked chicken in their suitcase--thinking they would get their bag in a matter of hours, but instead, it was days.
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