We travel for advunture, but sometimes, the travel is the adventure.
That is even more true now as the travel industry comes out from two years in near hibernation to be slammed with people looking to get out and about.
If left to my own devices, I’d be happy just heading out to Moose in our trailer, but about a year ago, my … third? favoourite band of all time announced they were going to release a live album from a show recorded in 1991.
But wait, there’s more, they said.
The band was supposed to be the hot new thing for MCA, but they discovered, after signing the recording contract, that MCA did not actually know how to promote a rock band.
So they recorded one album, quite possibly the best album of all time, toured for a while, started work on a second album but realized they didn’t want to do what they were doing anymore so just broke up instead.
Now, 31 years later, they said if enough people backed the Live Album on Kickstarter, they would release the second album (and even record a few new songs). And when they hit their strech goals, they added one last goal: a live show. The first one in 31 years, and possibly their last one, ever.
Well, they hit that goal, too, so they scheduled the live show for July 2, 2022.
Which explains why I am sitting in a hotel in Nashville, TN working on the Tumbler RidgeLines newspaper.
But how I got here? That’s another story.
It all started out innocently enough. I caught a ride with Michael to the airport. Of course, my flight left at 7:00 in the evening, but he wanted to get his car fixed, so we left at 6:00 in the morning. Which wouldn’t have been bad if I hadn’t woken up at 4 and realized I hadn’t transferred the pictures for this paper to my brand new laptop. So I started to get ready for my flight 15 hours early.
The flight to Calgary was uneventful, but getting to Calgary, there was a note on my phone saying my flight was being delayed about 40 minutes.
It was actually delayed the better part of an hour, so I landed in Toronto at Pearson Airport with 2.5 hours before my next flight.
Which would normally be lots of time. But this is not normal times, and walking towards the “Connections to the US” Section of the Airport, I saw the line was already halfway across the airport.
So, I got into line and slowly filtered to the front of that line, where an airport worker pointed me to another line that weaved it’s way back and forth and finally into the Connections to the US area, where I wound up in a third line, then a fourth, before finally getting through the scanner.
After the scanner, there was this line, which lead to another line, and finally into the line for customs, which weaved back and forth across the room about 15 times.
I still had an hour to go when I hit tis line, but when my flight time came and went, I was still two forths and backs from getting to customs.
Fortunately, word went up that my flight had been delayed. Yay! I got through customs, ran to my gate and the plane was gone. Boo. It had been held 20 minutes, I was 30 minutes late.
So I went to talk to a Westjet agent about rescheduling. “We can get you to Nashville the day after your concert,” he said.
Well, that doesn’t work.
“You can book with a different airline,” he said. For $700 additional bucks? Ugh.
So I decided to catch the Greyhound, for $200. It would get me to Nashville three hours before the show.
So, I signed up for a 22 hour bus ride.
Everything was going well until Louisville, where I wound up missing my bus. I was sitting right by the door, but I was writing a nasty note to Westjet, and missed it.
With my camera and computer still on board.
Fortunately, there was another bus heading out in two hours, but the bus wasn’t stopping in Nashville, and the Station Manager was unable to contact anyone in Nashville to let them know.
So I posted a note on the band’s Facebook page: “Anyone able to go and meet the bus and grab my stuff?”
And one fellow, who actually started the Facebook page (and is also a photographer) said he could do it. Two hours later, I hopped on the next bus, with a dead phone and a pit in my stomach.
Someone lent me their charge cable (busses these days have power plugs. I never knew.) and I was able to get my phone half charged. I signed onto the busses wifi and checked my notes. And saw this: “Got to your seat. Both bags were empty.”
Crap.
Then, another note:
“I don’t know what’s missing, but I recovered three lenses, the body, some accessories and your laptop. Some clothing and your medication. Not sure what else but I could not find your passport.”
When I got into Nashville, I went straight to the concert venue where I met my new hero, Kevin. He said he was waiting outside the bus when he saw someone get off with a plastic bag and a laptop sticking out of it. He went onto the bus and saw my bags, but when he picked them up, he knew they were basically empty. He went to have a talk with the gentleman, who said someone had just given him all this stuff. Mmmhmm.
But he got almost all my stuff back. Missing are my earphone case and one earphone (I had the other one in my ear, which may or may not be why I missed the bus) and some clothes, including my one pair of pants.
The moral of this story? If you are going traveling, have grace for the people who work in the industry. It’s crazy right now. Also, while some people suck, most are kinder than you think, and willing to help. I hate not being self reliant, but sometimes I think the good Lord does this to me to force me to accept the kindness of strangers. To open up to others, even people I don’t know.
Because if we aren’t willing to step outside our walls, we will never meet anyone new, and that would be a sad, lonely life.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
