01: The Trip That Almost Didn’t Happen
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Some trips begin with a carefully planned itinerary.
This one began with a gate change, a dead phone battery, and the slow realization that our rental car reservation existed everywhere except the rental car counter.
In this episode, Ric Wayland and Jennifer Do revisit a trip that started badly, got stranger by the hour, and eventually became one of those stories that improves every time it is told.
In this episode
We talk about:
- the airport delay that set everything in motion
- how one small booking mistake became a much larger problem
- the rental car that did not inspire confidence
- the wrong turn that led somewhere unexpectedly worthwhile
- what we would do differently next time
- why difficult trips often become the most memorable ones
A few things we learned
Always screenshot the reservation confirmation before leaving home.
Never assume the last rental car in the lot is the one you reserved.
A place does not need to be famous to become the best part of a trip.
And when someone says, “This road probably reconnects with the highway,” ask to see the map.
Places and resources mentioned
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- Example restaurant
- Example roadside attraction
- Example travel app
- Example airline or booking service
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Photo gallery
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Transcript
Ric: At what point did you realize the reservation was not actually in their system?
Jennifer: Somewhere between the third confirmation number and the employee asking whether I was sure I had booked the correct city.
Ric: Which was not a confidence-building question.
Jennifer: No. Especially because we were standing in the correct city.
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