Vacation in Outer Banks is anything but
Vacation to Outer Banks is anything but
This is the story of how I was stranded on vacation. Someday the word stranded will strike me as hyperbole, but not yet.
Late last month I drove alone to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to see my son, who had flown from Los Angeles with his fiancée to spent time with her family. During the long drive I injured my right knee. Doctors advised rest and ice.
Laid up in the hotel I watched reruns of “Gilligan’s Island,” that 1960s sitcom in which seven people get shipwrecked on an island during a three-hour tour. They were truly stranded, albeit with glamorous clothing and an entire library of science books, but whatever. I was not that stranded.
But I would not be able to safely drive myself back home.
“I’ll drive you home,” said my son. “And then I’ll fly back to Los Angeles from Pittsburgh.”
But he was just days away from starting a new job in Kentucky, and was already scrambling to cover all the travel that would require. It wasn’t an option.
As I sat there with a thinking cap on my head and an ice pack on my knee, I decided that this sort of predicament is the reason some people hate to travel. Bad things land more harshly when you’re away from home.
The kids bought me a knee brace, kept me fed, and my son fashioned an ice pack from the hotel room’s plastic laundry bags and cubes from the hall ice machine.
Friends from home texted to ask how my vacation was going. I shared my plight with a few and word got around. Soon, two co-workers were offering to drive down and fetch me. But how could I ask that? Take two days of their work week and subject them to the grueling drive?
I could get a ride back with someone from the Pittsburgh families my son was with. But first, I had to get my car home. For the first time in my life, I was doing business with auto transport, a strangely mysterious enterprise that requires both a great deal of trust and a lot of money.
I arranged for my Subaru to be picked up at the hotel last Saturday at noon. The driver arrived five hours early and spoke no English, making it impossible for us to communicate about the delivery. And while I respect that this man is just trying to earn a living doing difficult work, he and I could not understand each other, and good luck reaching a company on a weekend. Not wanting to pay for another four nights at the hotel, I gave the driver my car keys and watched as he drove away with my new Crosstrek on his trailer.
The next morning I got a ride home with two of the nicest people I’ve ever met. It was the best part of an abysmal week – that and seeing the kids.
We’ve heard a lot about how gratitude can lift us out of misery and give us perspective. I made a gratitude list, and this is what I wrote.
Got to see the kids a lot, and they are kind people; they went deep sea fishing and caught sea bass, which they cooked and shared with me; I have friends who were standing by to rescue me if I needed it; my son is marrying into a lovely family; my daughter called to check on me every day; I could afford the financial hit of everything – many others could not.
My car arrived on time and in good condition. I was back in my own bed by Sunday night. Gilligan’s group were stranded for three whole seasons; I was only shipwrecked for nine days. Still, nine pretty terrible days.