This is one of my favorite travel stories to tell people. It's really one of those you'll-laugh-about-it-later kinds. Enjoy!
Derek and I decided that my birthday weekend would be a great time to go visit Jackson, WY. Derek's parents have a condo that they rent out just outside of town, and it's available for family use if we give enough warning time. So we decided to go with our friends from BYU, Caroline and Michael. We planned on going up Friday after classes and then returning Sunday in time for them to attend their ward.
We were so excited! This was our first trip with another married couple! On our way up, we talked, laughed, listened to music and sang. Caroline was one of my roommates freshman year and it was fun to hang out again. I'm not sure if we left Provo a bit later than we had planned, but I do remember for sure that we planned on getting to Jackson at a decent hour even with stopping for a quick dinner.
Well, we stopped about half-way there to eat. The four of us decided that a sit down place would be a good idea--to get us out of the car for a while. We had a nice dinner and then were on our way again. But we were having so much fun talking together, that Derek and Michael, our driver and navigator, weren't paying attention and got on the highway going East instead of North. This mistake wasn't noticed for about 30 minutes which meant that our detour set us back an hour. Usually this wouldn't have been a problem, we still would have gotten there at a decent hour, but there were other circumstances working against our favor...
About 20 minutes outside of Jackson, Caroline said, "I hope we get there soon, I really have to use the bathroom." Well, no sooner had she said that, we hit a road block, and there was quite a line of traffic backed up. At first, I wasn't worried. There is often road construction on rural highways, and usually it's just a matter of minutes before traffic starts moving again. It was not to be this time. A police officer knocked on our window and informed us that the highway was closed for three hours. THREE HOURS! AGH!
We asked if there were any other ways into town. We were SO CLOSE! We couldn't believe it! He said the only other way to get to Jackson was to go back the way we came and then go around the other side of the mountain. That route also took three hours so we decided to save the gas and just wait it out in the car.
So we were stuck out in the middle (well it seemed like the middle) of nowhere in the middle of the night. Caroline decided that she had to use the bathroom bad enough that she would just rough it and go out in the woods. Michael offered to go with her because it was pitch black outside. She later told me that as they were walking, some of the road crew told them to be careful not to go too far out in to the woods because there were bears. Great, bears! She eventually found a safe place.
We waited... and waited... and waited. We ran out of things to do in the car in the dark. Plus, we were tired. After a while we decided that the best use of our time would be to take a nap. But how do four people sleep in a little Jetta? Good question. The only position that even came close to being comfortable (and it wasn't really close at all) was for the guys to recline their chairs and the girls so sort of lay on/next to them. The four of us snoozed off and on until traffic moved again. I woke up with a HORRIBLE headache.
And if you thought that our trip couldn't get any worse, fooled you! It did! When we finally got to the condo, we expected the realtor to have left the keys under the mat for us. That's what she did for Derek's other brothers. We searched all over, but no keys. By this time it was just after two. We didn't have the number for the realtor. As bad as we felt about waking people up, we were sort of desperate, so we called Derek's brother Daryn in Provo to see if he knew. They had stayed in the condo just a few weeks before. He didn't know. Then we called Derek's parents in D.C., Dan (another brother) answered and none of them knew either.
Someone, don't remember who, had the idea to go to a nearby gas station to find a phone book to try to look up the realtor. We knew her name, but not her number. After calling a few numbers--again, we felt bad, but were D-E-S-P-E-R-A-T-E--and having no luck, we decided to stay at the gas station's motel. By the time we got checked in, it was after 3am. Even funnier, to save money, we all decided to share a room. Sort of weird... a co-ed sleepover...
The next morning, we found the realtor, got a key and a reimbursement for the motel stay. She apologized and said that she thought that we would have a key. Don't quite know how she would have come up with that conclusion. Other brothers have stayed there and needed keys, but she still thought we had a key. We took our luggage over to the condo and then went out sightseeing around Jackson.
Even though the trip up there was rough, we still had a good time. It was, to say the least, a very memorable birthday trip! Although, we didn't hear from Caroline and Michael for a long time afterwards. They say it was because of school work and such, but we were always afraid that it was because of the Jackson trip. :)
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