This trip was memorable for so many of the wrong reasons. But let’s start at the beginning shall we. Chris, a friend of mine, was keen to go to the Glastonbury festival. in the UK Chris being Chris though roped in another friend, Martin, a musician, to come along with us, as the man component because, you know, two women travelling alone. All of us being short of money and with no advance tickets, decided to drive down from up north in Chris’s bright purple mini van.
We loaded up the van with our limited gear, as none of us had a tent. Talk about utterly unprepared. But all that didn’t really matter. Because, as luck would have it. About 20 miles from the venue the damn van broke down. Which obviously left us in a dilemma. Chris was adamant she was not leaving the van and called up her ex, who was a mechanic, to see if he could come down and pick us up.
At some point while we were hanging around arguing what to do, Martin decided he was going to be a hero and told us to go on to Glastonbury and that he’d wait for Dave and then, head home with him, or drive the van. I don’t know how he did it but Chris agreed. Me? I was along for the ride. So we packed what we could carry between us and decided to hitch.
The first person to stop said he was heading to the festival and could take us, so we hopped in. But, several miles in, with Chris sitting up at the front, we stopped at a traffic light next to a gas station. Suddenly, she got out. The guy started shouting. Me? I bailed as quickly as I could and confused stood on the roadside with Chris yelling at the guy. He then sped off as the lights changed.
Turns out he thought his payment for the lift was to grope Chris. At this point you would think we’d turn around and head back to Martin, but no, Chris was in no mood and checking with people at the gas station learned we could walk the rest of the way. Yeah, sure we could.
We never made it.
Somewhere on this simple route we took a wrong turn and found ourselves lost as evening fell. It was at this point we either walk further, in the dark, or find somewhere to stay. Neither option sounded good. I made the suggestion we cut our losses. We had passed a train station so suggested we head back to it and try catch a train north, and home.
After another walk, and dog tired, we found the station and booked a through ticket from where we were to Crewe Station, were we could catch a connection to either Wigan or Manchester. We opted for Wigan.
Well, we never made it to Wigan. Not straight away. We were awake enough when the train pulled in at Crewe and changing trains and platforms, climbed aboard the Glasgow train stopping at Wigan along the way.
Guess who fell asleep and ended up in Carlisle? Yeah, we did. Getting off at Carlisle, and talking to the station master explaining what had happened, Chris convinced the guy to let us get on the next train heading south, back toward Wigan.
Yes, we made it finally to Wigan where I called up a friend who gallantly came and rescued us.
It was some road trip, just not the one we had planned or wanted. As for Martin? Dave found him, they fixed the van, and they both drove back up north without incident. We never did another road trip together, anywhere, after that. I wonder why?
And you, have you ever done any memorable (good or bad) road trips?
Photo by Chris Haig on Unsplash
Omg! What a nightmare! This makes me think of a book I just finished where the folks go all over just to try to get home!
I’ve taken many memorable ones (good), thankfully!
Also, randomly, we watched a movie this week and part of the storyline was the band in the movie performing at Glastonbury festival.
Yeah, talk about everything that could go wrong, going wrong. However, I do now have a great anecdote to recount to people. And it’s fair to say, this was the only bad road trip I ever took.
And funny how a lot of movies are based on a similar premise.
You have such hilarious stories.
When was the I wonder. When I started reading I thought it was happening just this past few weeks but it must have been earlier.
I don’t have any comparable fun/adventurous road trip stories. Even though all my travels until about 25 were road trips.
This happened in my 20s, Tobia, so year, quite a long while ago now. I did do a lot of crazy things back in my 20s and 30s. When you are single and have lots of friends, it’s fun to do things you can’t when you have a partner and family.
And I’m sure you still had some memorable moments on your own road trips.