A travel story when the traveler doesn't have a clue
My mother told me this traveler-doesn't-have-a-clue story yesterday morning after I picked her up at the Greyhound bus station in Columbus, Ohio.
I posted about this yesterday, but I'm still shaking my head and wondering where the woman is today and what she has found to eat. Perhaps she's in Missouri?
It has reminded me of other travel stories when there is nothing else to do but keep on keeping on--and hopefully, eventually, you'll get to where you want to go. It's also to make you feel better if you've ever made a travel mistake. I've made mistakes, but not quite like this.
Here is the recap:
"Where are you going?" My mother asked the woman who got on the bus in Newark, New Jersey.
"Los Angeles," the woman said.
"My!" said my mother. "That's far. When will you get there?"
"Tomorrow." The woman, according to my mother, sounded confident.
"Tomorrow?!" my mother exclaimed.
Mind you, they are on the bus on the east coast. The U.S. hasn't shrunk.
The woman nodded, still sure.
In Pittsburgh, the woman discovered the truth. She won't arrive in Los Angeles until Saturday, I think sometime tomorrow night. It is a looooonnnnnng ride.
My mother said that the woman spoke with an accent , so perhaps she misunderstood the details, or she never asked for the details. I wonder if her ticket gave her an inkling that something was amiss? Regardless, she's somewhere the middle of the U.S. by now and by tomorrow night she'll be in L.A.
This reminds me a little bit of the problem when planning international travel that involves crossing the International Date Line. When we lived in Asia I always double checked to make sure I understood exactly what day it would be when I would arrive somewhere. Missing a day can wreck havoc on plans if you're not careful.
Or there are the mistakes where you head east instead of west or the other way around. I know someone who was driving to Washington, D.C., from Columbus, but didn't discover he had gone the wrong way until he hit Indiana or thereabouts. He had recently immigrated to the U.S. which added to his sign reading difficulties and reluctance to ask for directions.
Filed under: Stories, Transportation, Budget Travel
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jun 27th 2008 @ 10:40PM
nzm said...
I experienced a similar situation when flying back to New Zealand from LAX a few years ago.
As we flew down the North Island on our descent into Auckland, I heard a gasp of dismay from the American girl (mid-20s) beside me.
When asking her what was wrong, she replied, "New Zealand's a lot bigger than I imagined. I was going to buy a bike and cycle around it in a couple of days."
Yeah right.
As for the compass problems, I experience that for a few days when travelling from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern. My internal compass spins and I always think that North is South and East is West and vice versa. It takes some conscious effort to reset it.
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Jun 28th 2008 @ 10:17AM
Jim said...
I was recently on a flight from Manchester in England to Philadelphia. As we rolled down the runway for take-off something went wrong and the pilots had to do an emergency stop. As a result some of the tyres deflated and the plane was impounded as a crash site.
We were all shuffled off to a hotel for the night and flew out the next day (after a further 4 hour delay - 28hrs in total). Anyway, and to chime with the theme of our post, our misery was as nothing compared to the lady on board who had found herself in Manchester by mistake. She had tried to book a ticket from Phillie to Manchester NH, but had selected Manchester UK instead. A couple of hours in to her outbound flight she realised her error. She had to spend one night in Manchester as there is only one flight a day, an unfortunately had to spend another when the plane broke. Her two hour trip from Phillie to New Hampshire turned in to something like 55hrs.
That's a travelling mistake, indeed.
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Jun 28th 2008 @ 10:20AM
Jamie Rhein said...
Jim,
Very funny. Poor woman. That sure is a lesson in paying attention to that drop down menu when you book a flight.
Jamie
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Sep 29th 2008 @ 3:53PM
mark porter said...
I was planning a trip approx.15 yrs.ago to a then little known carribean island called Anguilla. I had won the hotel portion in a charity auction and just needed to book the air portion. I called a local travel agency and told them my dates of travel and destination. I then gave them my c.c.info not too worried about the price as they told me they would find me the best deal. I was really surprised when my tickets arrived at the same time as my c.c. bill. The charge was almost $3000.00!!! I was booked to go to ANGOLA AFRICA. Good thing the tickets back then were refundable!!!
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