First Person: My Worst Road Trip was a Field Trip

When road trips go well, they are enjoyable. However, when they do not go well, they can be horrors. I have been on a few road trips that could have been horror stories for a part of the trip. There was the trip when I drove to Dallas, Texas. At that time, I had a Chevy S-10 and the tire popped just in front of the exit I needed off the Interstate. It was scary having my tire pop while I was going the speed limit of 70 mph. I then had to sit and wait for help to arrive for over an hour, even though there was somebody nice enough to call roadside assistance for me.

Another trip that might be considered a horror was when I was in high school and the quiz bowl coach's van broke down so we were stranded in the small town of Jennings, Louisiana. Thankfully by that time, they had a Wal-Mart, so we could be there until one of the other parents could get us.

Another terrible road trip would be with the quiz bowl coach when it started pouring hard rain in the dark night so nobody could see where they were going and we had to sit on the interstate and wait for the rain to calm.

However, what was probably the worst road trip experience took place when I was a senior in high school. We traveled on a school bus to New Orleans, Louisiana. I was with our high school's math club, Mu Alpha Theta. We went to a tournament and at first, everything seemed fine. We finished our competitions and we ate at McDonald's. When we returned to the bus, that is when we found things were not as great as we thought they would be.

Once everybody was on the bus, we were ready to leave. The bus driver was ready to leave and then the bus didn't start. The bus driver tried to start the bus a few more times, but the bus didn't start. We were stuck in New Orleans, in the middle of the summer on a school bus without air conditioning.

It would seem that the school hosting the tournament would have had some place we could have stayed while the problems with the bus were being solved. However, this did not happen.

Instead, we had to sit on the bus the entire time. There was not an easy solution, either. The bus couldn't go in for repairs while we waited elsewhere because of permission and what the school would allow. The only solution was to wait for another bus to come to New Orleans to bring us back to Lake Charles. This was a good three hour wait. We had to wait on the hot bus for the new bus.

When the new bus finally arrived, it was still hot, as it was a school bus. We thought we'd at least be happy to get home. However, that bus was very uncomfortable for everybody. Every bump in the road could be felt and the bus seats seemed to multiply the bumps, always hurting our backs and our legs.

We were glad to be back in Lake Charles when we got there, but we were also tired of school buses!