The Good, The Bad And The Humorous
My recent adventure contained more good than bad and I can now look back and laugh at some of the events.
The Bad was the mistakes made and the uneasy, frustrating emotions churning in my spirit.
The Good was the Blessings of safe travel and the people that we met along the way.
The Humorous, as is true in much of life, was not so humorous at the time but happenings that we have laughed about since getting back to Alabama.
If you have been following my blog posts concerning this trip then you might remember that we experienced different hotel brands and conditions. The first hotel was a new brand for a major hotel chain. Neither of us had stayed at that particular brand before but I chose it because it was new (hopefully clean and up to date) and less expensive than the brand that I usually choose.
As I stepped into the lobby I noticed a very contemporary décor along with a pool table. The chairs and lighting were very different than any other hotel that I had seen.
The room did not have a closet. Hooks on the walls were provided for hanging clothes. There were no dressers for those who prefer to unpack, only a bench with a shelf underneath. There was a small dorm size refrigerator but no microwave or coffee maker. Those items were provided in the snack/breakfast area of the lobby.
USB and electrical plugs were at every chair, seating area and table. Those plugs were everywhere!
After explaining to me, in a negative tone of voice with accompanying facial gestures, that this new hotel brand was built and designed specifically for millennials, my travel buddy proceeded to fill each of the USB plugs in our room with her electronic devices! It will be a long time before she lives that down.
Something else that you may remember from a recent blog was the fact that I was going to try my best to “go with the flow”, especially by following the GPS on my travel buddy’s phone. No printed maps were to be used on this trip.
My friend sat patiently as I yelled, “NO, NO, NO!” more than once as the woman’s voice in her phone would say, “At the next traffic light turn right onto Jim Bob’s Lane” or some similar back, county road that I’m sure is not on any known printed map.
On our last travel day that voice wanted me to take yet another county road to get onto the main US highway I was seeking. This turn off was also at an intersection where I would be able to get onto the interstate for a few miles to get to that main road. I chose the interstate. After all, we would only have to drive on that busy, four lane interstate for a few miles and at this point in our journey I had seen enough of America’s back roads.
Well, I missed the right exit, took the next one and had trouble finding my way back to the main highway that I wanted to take. Pulling my old, well-worn atlas from the back seat I became oriented and found our way back to the point where I could reach the highway I was seeking.
After arriving at my original starting point in Florence, we went to dinner and got a good night’s sleep. The next day I decided that I would take my friend to a few tourist attractions around the area.
One of the attractions was only 14 miles from our apartment building and I had been to that attraction before. But I had driven there one way and returned a different way. So I checked the directions online but did not print them out. There were only two different roads that we would be taking. That amounted to only one turn before we would be arriving at the destination.
Yep, I missed that turn. Who can guess how we got back on track in the middle of the woods on narrow county roads?
The voice from my friend’s phone!
My recent adventure took me well beyond the range of my comfort zone and certainly contained The Good, the Bad and the Humorous.
I am very thankful that we can now laugh as we tell of our mishaps or mistakes.
Be sure and check out KeppenArt in the coming weeks for images of our adventure from Georgetown, South Carolina to St. Marys, Georgia as we scouted around for a possible retirement location. Choosing and then processing photographs to post will take some time as I settle back into my comfortable, hermit-like routine – until my next adventure!
Comments are always encouraged and very much welcomed.
