Everyone has wild adventures, especially when traveling home from college for spring break, right? And of course, you can leave it up to your parents to help you get home in the most simplistic way possible, or so everyone thinks. My trip to home, which is Kansas, so I could make my flight to Las Vegas to visit my sister was a bit like when you buy your airplane tickets and you are like “Why do I have a layover in (insert city) when I could have just flown straight to (insert final destination)?”
It started the Wednesday after I finished my last final. I got into my roommate’s car and we started off towards Madison, so I could catch a bus Thursday morning that left from University of Wisconsin. The drive wasn’t that long, but it felt long enough that it seemed to span over half a day. Once we got to her house, we watched a movie, “Howl’s Moving Castle,” and fangirling over the storyline (sorry bud, it was a highlight, I had to put it in here).
That morning, we got up at 9 a.m. sharp and, after a nice breakfast, she drove me over to the bus stop. On our way there, we saw a couple of buses lined up. We took the wrong turn and had to drive around for a couple of minutes before we arrived to the bus stop again. The buses had disappeared, and we started to panic. We waited there for a couple more minutes, after a quick phone call with her mother, and then my bus arrived.
The bus ride was anything but eventful. The views were not very scenic. Luckily, I had brought a book along, “Me Before You,” and finished two thirds of the book by the time I arrived in Rochester. By the way, I highly recommend the book, it is very good and Elisabeth Goodnough wrote a review about it. Once I arrived in Rochester, I had to make my way to the hotel and prepare myself to wait five hours for my parents to arrive in Rochester from home.
During my time in the hotel, I read a little more before deciding to go on an adventure. They have these cool skywalks in Rochester that allow you to travel between buildings without going outside. So I called my sister, who had previously been here before, and tried to get directions from her so I could get some food and do a little bit of shopping. Needless to say, I spent an hour and a half on the phone with her, while she tried to guide me around. Her directions were crap, but that’s OK. I got in a lot of exercise and pretty much memorized the area so I could easily go back out again the next day with my parents.
Once my parents arrived, we got some food and then promptly headed off to bed. The next morning, we took my mother to her appointment at Mayo's– the whole reason why we were there – and then walked around a bit. After grabbing a bite of food, we started our journey home. I was promised a chance to drive from Kansas City to Wichita, but yeah, that didn’t actually happen. My dad drove the whole way and the the drive consisted of making fun of him and his driving skills.
Other than that, my two-day journey was pretty uneventful and boring. My family and I made it home safely without and trouble and I was able to see my little baby pup for a couple of hours before heading out to Las Vegas to visit my other sister, who is better at giving directions.
