Traveling for the holidays

It seems like I've been hearing about exciting travel stories from a bunch of different people. Well, exciting could mean frustrating here, as most the stories are about delayed/missed/canceled flights, but that could be thought of as exciting. I didn't actually have an exciting holiday traveling story, but if I did, here's how it probably would have happened.

The day started like any other. The sun rose, the wind blew. In the distance, the wild turkeys could be heard making turkey sounds. Nothing could have prepared me for the grueling journey on which I was about to embark.

Thursday Jan. 1st, 2009. 4 a.m., China Spring, Texas.


Woke up, loaded bags into vehicle for transportation to the Dallas Airport. Loaded self into vehicle for same purpose. Removed self from vehicle in order to go find someone to drive me so I wasn't awkwardly sitting alone in the passenger seat of the car. Went to Dallas airport, checked into flight, waited at gate C 24.


Thursday Jan. 1st, 2009. 8 a.m., Dallas/Fort Worth Airport.


Listened to announcement declaring my plane unfit for travel. Transferred to a different plane at gate E 38. Got on plane two hours later than original departure time. Promptly fell asleep.


Thursday Jan. 1st, 2009. 3 p.m., Cairo, Egypt.


Woke up from unusually sound sleep. Plane was unloading. Got off. Looked around. Became confused. Looked around again. Confusion increased 8 fold. Talked with flight attendant. Became apparent that I transferred to the wrong flight. Instead of a layover in Philadelphia, I was in Egypt. Confusion was replaced by fear and anxiety. Fear and anxiety were replaced by hunger and sleepiness. Was informed I needed to purchase a ticket back to the U.S. They did not accept Visa. Realized I could not but a ticket. Decided to walk back. Struck out across the desert.

At first I was intimidated by the vastness of the desert. Then I realized, it wasn't the vastness that killed people traveling across. It was was the vastness, the heat, the lack of water, the venomous wildlife, and the marauders that killed travelers. No long intimidated by just the vastness, I struck out for home.


Thursday Jan. 1st, 2009. 7 p.m., Egypt and surrounding countries.


Discovered a lost pyramid during my travels. Excavated it from the hot, burning sand with my bare hands. Found interesting artifacts. Carried them out. Donated them to a museum on my way back to Detroit. Bought lotion for my hands to help soothe the burning pain from the sand digging. Very quickly ran through the countries of Libya, Algeria and Morocco.


Thursday Jan. 1st, 2009. 9 p.m., Atlantic Ocean


Constructed makeshift raft from drift wood, fishing line, and an old sock. Rode quickly across ocean, carried by the winds of a hurricane. Made good time. Nearly eaten by shark north of Haiti. Ate shark instead. Rode winds north to the shores of Connecticut.


Thursday Jan 1st, 2009. 10:00 p.m., Eastern United States.


Sold raft for 50 dollars. Used money to take a taxi as far as the eastern shore of Lake Eerie. Started to swim. Halfway across the lake, wished I had kept the raft. Finished swimming just south of Detroit.


Thursday Jan 1st, 2009. 10:30 p.m., Detroit


Walked the rest of the way to Detroit. Got there 20 minutes later than I had originally planned. Picked up my suitcase from the baggage claim. Found my ride was still waiting for me. Got in car, rode back to Ann Arbor. Trip completed.

Here's the map showing my trip. As I was drawing the dotted lines, I hummed the Indiana Jones music. You should also hum it while you look at the map, if you didn't, you should start humming it now, and look at the map again.


And that's my story of how I went from my parent's house near Waco, TX, back to Ann Arbor, MI where I am currently sitting and writing this blog post.