Have you ever had one of those day that you have laugh else you will cry?
That was yesterday/today for me. The worst part about leaving is the traveling…crazy that I am the one saying that traveling is the worst part but it is just the never ending string of airports and flights from one corner of the country to the next.
The flying wasn’t terrible. With the freak storms the United States has seen across the country I was worried about being weathered into an airport and stuck for the duration of whatever storm. I was completely wrong actually, what began my series of unfortunate events began when I landed at 12:12 am, after flying 18 hours through four time zones without any sleep oh and my bag was the last to hit the belt, I thought that the bright spot in my night was when I got a taxi right away.
Little did I know that, that was the only highlight of my day. The night just never ended! The address I was given to find my car was unable to be found by my pour taxi driver, who mind you is in his late 70s, has now been driving me across Fort Myers for over an hour. Finally after not being able to locate my car nor contact my friend who dropped it off in the first place, I called it quits. I finally told the taxi cab driver to just drop me off at the nearest gas station and I would figure it out from there.
The sweet old man didn’t like hearing that but eventually we parted ways and I was left in front of a 7-11 gas station by this time it is now nearly 2 am and without any sleep or being able to contact my friend because… oh yeah it is 2am, I bunker down for a long night. Thankfully though at a gas station I knew three things, there was coffee, food if needed and I was in Florida so I didn’t have to worry about it being cold. I also found a plug so I could charge my phone the last thing I needed was to be stranded with a dead phone, being “stranded” was enough for one night.
I finally decided to just accept the situation instead of being upset about it I found a way to enjoy it! I had to find it funny, around 3am a lady pulls into the gas station parking lot with a Jamaica flag hanging off of her rear view mirror. The car itself was beat up beyond belief but it was still running, she went inside with the night clerk for several minutes. Thinking nothing of it I sat on the stacks of wood outside enjoying the cool night with the stars shining brightly above me. Later the lady with the Jamaican flag came back outside, she wondered over to the hood of her car and started to scratch away at her lottery ticket. No, she didn’t win multi millions of dollars but she did end up striking up a conversation with me and the night clerk. I guess the night clerk had told her where I was coming from and what I was doing on the road, since I had filled her in on my mission when she allowed me to bring my bags inside. First thing out of the Jamaican’s mouth is “How cold does it get in AK?” she asked very loudly. Once she broke the ice (ha! see what I did there!) the night clerk, myself and the Jamaican lady started talking about nearly anything under the invisible sun!
Once my phone battery was charged enough I didn’t have to worry about being up shit creek with no petal. I decided I was going to start trudging forward on my misadventure. I had spent the last several hours observing the landscape, the address the GPS was sending the cab too was very close but according to the GPS that address didn’t exist. After staring at the location for several hours I decided that I was going to walk over there and see if I could find my car…just for the heck of it, it isn’t like I had anywhere else to be at that point.
There was a huge apartment complex that was close to where the GPS was trying to take me before so I figured that would be a good place to start. However, what I was not looking forward to was walking with all my crap on my shoulders. As I made my way down the street I remembered doing “buddy carries” up the “Vs” on USS Mesa Verde and by the time I got to the apartment complex I would have rather been carrying Hall or Himes up the ramps then to pick up my bag one more time. When I left to Alaska the bag felt great…then I went home and got two coffee table books were given to me for Christmas which changed the weight of my bags quite a bit.
I was ecstatic to see that my car was in fact in the parking lot! I thought I was in business at this point….wrong again! This time my mobile app I got when I first signed up for when I got the car, didn’t work to unlock my car because my car had going into a sleep cycle and it is apparently a pain in the butt to get my car up before it would actually work for me like you are supposed too. So I once again thought how thankful I was for deductive reasoning and Onstar I was able to get my car up and running.
By now it was 5am and I reminded myself that I had gone through far worse, working all day while I was in the Navy, doing OJT after hours, studying school then going to stand watch from 0200-0700 with no sleep prior to watch or afterwards. I told myself that this was a piece of cake in comparison, but my goodness it was quite the ordeal though…like I said I had to laugh else I would have cried from being completely exhausted. But it is always an adventure and it is always best to turn a bad situation into something good.
Traveling Photographer Out!
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