I’m going to share a true story with you.  The names have not been changed to protect the innocent, because we were all guilty!  This is about safety and travel.  Even the best made plans can go awry and when this happens you must keep your wits about you and try to remain calm and clear headed.  Photo – disaster box

Our story begins with our plans to travel to our usual summer destination, West Yellowstone National Park, Madison Campground.  For the last five years we’ve traveled in tandem with our senior friends either in the same vehicle splitting the expenses or driving behind them.  Three of those years I’ve sat in the back seat and just enjoyed the scenery, not really paying attention to the route.  Last year we drove our own RV for the first time there, following our very travel seasoned friends to the destination, leaving them to stay the remainder of the summer, while we found ourselves returning home on a different route.  This is where my first mistake occurred. 

I had kept a copy of last year’s driving directions in the RV.  And I had also pulled off the internet “MapQuest” site, driving directions for this year.  Unfortunately, I had marked our return route (which was different than the arrival route) and a year later in my mind this was now the arrival route also.  Armed with these instructions plus my Rand McNally hard copy map, we set off traveling as usual following our friends tail pipe!  Seven hours into the trip we arrive at Dumas, Texas.  It is here that we stop to eat and enjoy talking about our plans for the two weeks we have together.  Our last conversation was:  “we’ll plan to stop in Denver.”  With those words lingering in my mind, we headed out to the RV, got in, and followed our friends to a gas station.  Here, alas is where the second mistake occurred.  (While traveling with this particular couple of friends, we have a spoken rule:  if we get separated, they are usually ahead of us – they’ll slow down and wait for us to catch up).  At this particular gas stop, there wasn’t a “pay at the pump” so my husband decided we’d go down the road to find another place and EUREKA!  We found it.  Gas was ten cents cheaper and of course there was a long line.  Not to be deterred, my husband pulled into line and we waited and waited and waited.  Finally while filling up, we saw our friends pass by and knowing our “catch up” rule, knew we’d find them sooner or later.  It turned out to be much later!  Finishing our fill up, we started out of Dumas headed north.  Almost immediately out of the city limits I noticed our cell phones had lost their signals and showed only 911 services.  Strange, I thought, however, we were driving with our friends so in case of any problems we had each other.  Third mistake coming up.  As we passed a sign “Dalhart” with a direction arrow, I commented, “seems like we usually take that turn, but I don’t see it here on my directions.”  So, we kept traveling north on Highway 287 into Oklahoma.  Erstwhile, our friends were waiting for us around the bend at the Dalhart exit.  We never saw them; they never saw us.  Thinking we may have gotten ahead of them and by now after this many trips to West Yellowstone, were ahead of them – they proceeded north up through to New Mexico – yes, we were all traveling north – except we were 150 miles apart on different highways.  It only gets worse. 

We kept traveling wondering why we hadn’t caught up with one another yet.  And to boot, our cell phones continued to show emergency services only.  I attempted numerous calls on both phones without any luck.  In the meantime, our friends turned back and went to Dumas looking for us, and we continued traveling north looking for our traveling buddies – getting farther and farther away from each other.  (There will be times in your life when sh___t happens).  This was one of them.

It pays to have friends in high places and low places.  Being a world traveler, our friend began to think that something bad had happened to us.  After all when you’ve been confronted at knife point in a foreign country, had canoe failure in the Amazon, surrounded by gang members, and told not to come into a country due to increased violence against Americans, you would begin to consider something has happened to the missing couple you were traveling with  especially when three hours and then seven hours have passed by.  Unbeknownst to us (who continued traveling north in hopes of catching up) our senior friends had doubled back and found the gas station where we had filled up – yes, they got the manager to go back through all the credit card receipts.  The local police put out a search for us.  Our family members and other friends back home had been told we were missing.  Our local police station had an officer who was working off duty on our case – hitting redial every five to ten minutes trying to get through on our cell phones.  Our daughter and her husband were on their way up to meet our friends to begin a search party for the surrounding area.  This was after having ransacked our house looking for our vehicle information.  The thought was “they’ve been carjacked.” 

A local Texas Ranger and surrounding area authorities were notified until there was a four state search put out on our vehicle.  Traveling to Denver, we never saw one highway patrol!  You may ask, “why didn’t you turn around and go back or stop and call?”  We considered turning back, but thought our friends were just ahead of us so our rational was “if we stop and turn around and they’re not where we last saw them, we’ll be putting all of us so far behind schedule.”  Besides, “we have our directions.”  (What we’ve got here is a “failure to communicate” – remember that movie line)?  We did stop once and went into an RV campground to get some assistance with our cell phones.  I’ll never be able to explain why I didn’t just ask to use a landline phone and attempt to place calls to our friends’ cell phones – hindsight is 20/20, hence mistake number four!

After eight hours our cell phone beeped and I saw we had a signal.  I called our friends to ask where they were and got the shock of my life.  After much crying, thanking God, and getting a call from the police – we were able to piece together this story I’ve told you.  Needless to say, we had much explaining to do and a lot of humble pie to eat when we came back home after vacation.  The two good things that came out of this are:  we had the opportunity to find out how much our friends and family love us and that is overwhelming and very humbling.  People usually say wonderful things about a person at their funeral – we got to experience the love while living, and that does something to you which I can’t put into words.  Secondly, we can better help those who travel to plan a safer traveling experience.  There are many information items which a family or friend need to have these days – especially when the real thing happens such as carjacking, or a kidnapping.  As wonderful as travel is – there are people in the world who are mean and seek bloodlust as a thrill – it means nothing to these types of people to harm another for money, vehicle, or thrill.  And that is what you must always keep in the back of your mind while traveling.  Robert Fulgham said it best, “When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.” (All I Really Need to Know I Learned In Kindergarten, 1986, Ivy Books)   

To make your travel safer here are a few tips:  plan, plan, and plan.  Talk over your plans.  If traveling in tandem, make sure each driver knows the exact route to take – regardless of the number of times you’ve taken it.  Roads change, weather variables close passes and detours happen.  I still stand by the old CB radios.  Walkie - Talkies are good up to about seven miles apart if you have good line of sight.  Cell phones are limited in mountain areas and if your signal gets “stuck” as ours did, you can’t use any feature except 911.  Should your battery and charger quit working, you couldn’t even use that feature.  By the way, a stuck signal can sometimes be fixed by turning off cell phone for 10 minutes, switching back on, or taking out battery for 10 minutes and putting back in – we did all this to both phones and it didn’t work.  If that fails, the only recourse you have is to reach a landline phone and have your phone service provider “bump” your signal to reset it through the tech department. 

So have a plan if you get separated.  Set a time limit, set a meeting place.  Each time you stop to fill up or eat – talk about the route, talk about the plan.  You and your tandem travelers should each have the license plate info of all vehicles.  You should know something about each other, ie:  medical conditions, medications, allergies, family members and how to contact them.  Your family or friend back home should have the same above information.  They should know your destination, your route, and when you plan to arrive.  Should something go awry, the sooner the authorities are notified, the better your chances of getting help.

Travel is a wonderful way to experience our world.  To enjoy it for years to come, travel safe – Happy Traveling!  (And yes, we caught up with each other and had the best vacation ever)!

(photos are from http://www.sxc.hu/home  :  disaster box – Steve Woods, United Kingdom; signs – Zoran Ozetsky – Ivan Grad, Croatia; policia – Jorge Vicente, Cambria, Portugal; holding hands – Joseph Altarriba – Barcelona, Spain; RV – author’s )