We made it into Louisville, Kentucky today and will be staying with Nathan's folks for a few nights before heading to Oxford, OH on Monday to move into our new town home (...and see it for the first time.)
The trip has been pretty uneventful thus far, with the exception of a few summer storms. Summer rain is certainly a new experience for me; spending the last 29 summers in California, I've come to understand rain as a special occurrence that only happens between November and May. Nathan had a bit of a chuckle when, in Nebraska at our hotel, I pulled a chair up to the window to watch the rain. I look forward to learning more about the joy of a summer storm in the coming years.
Not everyone on the road had our same luck in regard to uneventful travel. We met a couple at a rest stop in Wyoming, between Rawlins and Laramie, who had locked themselves out of their car. The couple was around our age, from India, and were in the process of moving from California to Denver. As we walked back to our car from the restrooms, the man approached us and said, "We've locked our keys in the car, can you help us?" We paused for a moment, and I asked the obvious question: "Is your phone in the car?" The response, "Yes, it is." Now I understood why we were being asked for help.
The next question came from the man, "Can you pull up the number for Geiko on your phone?" A simple question that speaks to the widespread use of smartphones across our country. Unfortunately for this situation, Nathan and I do not have internet-enabled phones, due in part to our status as a graduate student family (read penny-pinching) and in-part to my stubbornness to avoid becoming constantly connected (I enjoy the moments when we have to wait until we get home to find out "who was in that movie?" or "what does the singer actually say during that part of the song?"). After exposing our circa 2001 lifestyle to this couple, we stood around for a few moments thinking: "what does one do without Internet?" First, Nathan made a call to AAA to see if they could give us the number for a locksmith in the area. This first strategy failed, as the representative could not find a AAA locksmith in the region and the one number she gave us went to voicemail.
Next, thinking back to the 90s, Nathan suggested their might be a phone book somewhere at the rest stop. "Brilliant!" I thought. Unfortunately, my search around the grounds revealed no pay phone, much less a phone book. Failed attempt number two.
Finally, Nathan asked, "Is there anyone else we can call?" And, again, the 1990s came rushing back to us: "4-1-1"--a service that I had no idea if it even still existed. Nathan called, got connected to the operator, was transferred to a locksmith in Rawlins, and suddenly help was on the way. It was quite magical really.
After being ensured that the locksmith was headed in their direction, we left the couple with the information we had gathered, along with our phone number, and we got back on the road. After about an hour, we received a text from an unknown number that said, "Thank you for your help. The locksmith came and we are back on the road. Best luck with your move." We were glad that everything worked out for the couple, and also happily satisfied that we were able to navigate being a good neighbor in the middle of nowhere without the help of a smartphone. I will note, however, that I find it a bit alarming that not all interstate rest stops have pay phones. Sure, pay phones are a bit antiquated, but cell phones die, and get bad reception, and get locked in cars. Pay phones would seem a good resource when traveling through stretches of uninhabited terrain. Regardless, the day was saved by less-than-modern technology, and we still made it to the hotel in good time (thanks in part to our trusty AAA paper Trip Tic--another tool that will probably be retired in a few years).
Somewhere Pretty, Wyoming
