I left this as a comment for another blog, but I think it can stand on it’s own here.
Years ago I was going to school in Flagstaff, AZ and was going back to Champaign, Illinois to visit my future wife over my Christmas break. A friend and I were going to caravan to Phoenix as his girlfriend lived in the area and I needed to get to the airport. It was snowing heavily, more heavily than I’d ever seen when we’d left Flagstaff, so we left about six hours before my flight, driving away around 3 am.
Maybe half an hour later we’re cruising down the highway at about 30 mph, I’m following my friend, me in my Ford Ranger and he in his girlfriend’s Geo Metro. He decides to speed up a bit to 35 mph; this makes me nervous since my truck doesn’t do so well in the snow. Five minutes later the back end of my truck loosens up and spins me around so that I’m now facing the headlights of the semi that was following me. I keep going though and see the tail end of the Metro before spinning a couple more times and then off the side of the highway into a snow bank.
My friend sees all of this and thinks I’m a goner for sure, but as I rest in the snow bank he pulls off and we spend about half an hour digging out and then hit the road again, this time a respectable 30 mph until we hit the snow line. We make it down to the airport just half an hour before my flight, before 9/11 this was generally frowned upon, but doable. The lines are so long though, that it takes ten minutes before I can talk to anyone, so when I finally reach a person they tell me that I’m too late and they gave my seats away. I’m assured though, that there’s another flight out later to Detroit and then on to Champaign. The flight to Detroit is delayed, but the gate crew tells me that the Champaign flight is delayed too so I should make it still.
I fly out to Detroit and arrive around 10 pm. I visit the gate crew and am told that the flight to Champaign left hours ago and the next one would leave the following afternoon. I’m stunned and have nowhere to go, and barely enough money for a hotel. I happened to work for Budget Rent-a Car washing cars to pay for school, and one of the perks at the time were cheap rentals, so I find the Budget desk just as they were closing up and ask if they have anything I can drop off somewhere around Champaign. They have a car I can take, but they tell me the closest drop off will be in Chicago, two hours and a half hours from Champaign.
I’m ready to throw in the towel and go sleep on the floor of the airport, but I remember that Budget had just bought another small agency the week prior, so I ask if I could drop the car off there instead if there happened to be a location in the area. They really want to help me out, so $20 later I’m in a car headed from Detroit to Champaign. Six hours of highway driving later and some 27 hours into this travel nightmare I’m passed out at my future wife’s apartment.




