In the early 90’s I worked for a company, traveling about New England. Each day, I awoke early (4:30) and would get ready for the day. At 5:30 I would speak to my boss. And by 6, I was out the door. I loved travel. I loved the people.
On this day, upon arriving home, I had received a call from my wife to be. A friend’s vehicle had broken down in Maine. Would I be willing to go along with a friend of mine and help get the family home. Of course, I said “yes”. I quickly changed my clothes and scooted next door to the home of the friend(Roger) I would be driving with. A quick sandwich and we headed out of Rutland, Vermont.
It was already 8PM or so as we left and we both had put in a long day. But we relished the adventure. As we drove across the state of Vermont, we had expectations of being where we needed to be around midnight. Crossing over into the state of New Hampshire, I simply noticed the large full moon was on my right. The passenger side of the vehicle. We continued to talk. We were both tired, but our friendship and coffee kept us awake. Fog was rolling in as we approached the coast.
Things became a little hazy as we approached the midnight hour.
I said “there is a sign, Portsmouth exit, 3 miles.” And that was the last time we were that close for many hours.
Somehow, in our fatigue we go turned around. I said, “why is the moon on our left” and we both laughed it off. We both thought this is taking a lot longer than we expected. The fog had subsided. We kept on driving. A little while later my friend saw the sign. St. Johnsbury 33 miles. He asked me, “is there a St. Johnsbury in Maine or New Hampshire?” I laughed and said “who knows”. Well, there wasn’t. We had become completely turned around and had take I93 north instead of I95. We looked at each other and just laughed.
Somewhere we turned around and headed east. Towards Mt. Washington. Coffee in hand, tears in our eyes from laughing so hard, we headed over yet another road. We drove over back roads. As we crossed the range near Mt. Washington, we were able to view the sun as it arose! We pulled over on the side of the road for a break and looked at the sunrise. We laughed as I said, “we ought to stop a store and get those little travel cards, ‘wish you were’” only we weren’t sure where “here” was!
At some point we needed to know where we were and we pulled into a little store. As my friend went to talk to the man behind the counter, the man pointed to a pile of copies. “Directions out of here”! Yep, I just started to laugh. We bought some donuts and more coffee.
We finally found our friends.Our 4 hour adventured had taken 14 hours! (I kind of know how Gilligan felt!)
We got back to Vermont and the next day my friend Roger and I took some heat, as the story spread about our friends in our church.
Funny, though. The next Saturday, two of my friends went to go get the van. At church, I asked one of them how the trip went. His face colored! He had got lost and ended up in the store with the “you are here” copies!
The only downside to the trip? I lost my Raybans. Some bear or moose is probably walking around Mt. Washington, styling.