I love to travel. Love to go. My mother always used to tell me I couldn’t sit still had to be “going somewhere”. True. All true.

Well, over my adult life I had my fare share of “travel issues”, much like many of you have probably had as well. By the way, I’d love to hear yours!).

Here are a few of mine: the 1st one I can remember is a family trip one summer to Myrtle Beach. On the way home, our car started overheating or something. My dad tried everything her new. Ended up staying in some dive-ish hotel in Princeton. Took 2 days to get home.

Next up: my 1st car was an old, pale-yellow VW “bug”. You remember: defroster NEVER worked, among other problems. Well, this “trip” was from Spring Hill to Hurricane to pick up my girlfriend at the time and go on to the Barboursville mall. Well, I picked her up, we get on the interstate and all of the sudden we hear this strange noise then…”ka-pow”! All of this back smoke and ashen-like stuff comes into the car. Come to find out, a rat had crawled up into the exhaust pipe and built a nest. Keep in mind that I’d only had this car for just a few weeks. I go to call the elderly man that I bought it from. His wife answers the phone and proceeds to tell me that he died a week or so after selling it to me. No joke. You just can’t make this stuff up!

Next up: Joyce and I hadn’t been married that long and we decided to go to King’s Island, just outside of Cincinnati. We DID NOT make hotel reservations prior to leaving home. We figured, it’s Cincinnati. They HAVE to have hotel rooms. Well, we leave the park and start driving north on I-71. We did find one place, a Red Roof Inn, or something, but thought it was too much money. Well, that was a big mistake. Cincinnati was hosting the pro tennis tournament that weekend. There was a monster truck show at Riverfront Stadium. We drive to Chillicothe. Nope. Every room is taken: softball tournament and the “biggest wedding in years”. We end up in downtown Columbus. At the Hilton. Starving. We order room service for dinner . Club sandwiches and have a beautiful dinner at …MIDNIGHT. Again, you can’t make this stuff up.

Scary travel story: we adopted Lily from Guatemala. We already had two kids, so I decided that I would fly to Guatemala City and bring Lily home. I fly from Charleston to Guatemala City on a Monday with no issues. While in Guatemala City(this was my 1st international trip) we are staying at a JW Marriott in Guatemala City. At precisely 5pm, an armed guard, complete with military uniform and automatic weapon, plants himself right outside the sliding glass doors that open into the lobby. What?! Then, once I have Lily, she and I have to make a trip to the US Embassy to process paperwork. It’s approximately a block and a half. Just around the corner. Our attorney on the ground in Gautemala City has her husband drive us to the embassy. He shows up in a Jeep Cherokee. We get in the back seat and he looks at me and tells me to lay down and “cover her up”. Then, he prceeds to cover us up with a blanket. Says we must be safe and stay ‘hidden form view”. What?! To go a block and a half? We are scheduled to fly back home on Thursday of that week. NOOO problem, right? WRONG. The morning we fly back, we land in Houston. Hurricane Rita is scheduled to hit Houston that weekend. We go through customs and no one says a word. We come upstairs and… the city of Houston is under a mandatory evacuation. The airport is shutting down. Thankfully our travel agent, Raymond Crockett, gets us the last 2 seats on a flight to Washington, DC. Additionally, he gets us a hotel room for that night. Keep in mind that the only thing I had with me was my backpack that had our important papers, a diaper or two, her sippy cup and a couple of toys. That’s it. No toothbrushes. Nothing. We got home the next day…I a took a long nap.

These are just a few. Like I said, I love to travel. I like it if you’d share a few of your favorite stories. Good times!

Be well,

Jeff