Nothing Goes as Planned

We just returned from a seventeen-day vacation to Italy. It was a good trip, but it got off to a bad start. No, I didn’t get arrested, but an Italian police car was one of my first photos from the trip.

Our flight landed in Milan on time, and a van hired by Go Ahead Tours picked us and some of our fellow travelers up at the airport for the one-hour drive to our hotel in Lecco. We were probably about halfway there when the van lost all power and coasted to the side of the road. After waiting in the hot sun for over a half-hour, we were finally rescued by a bus from the same company and taken the rest of the way.

Not a good start, but tomorrow was another day. That morning was set up with an optional excursion (which we didn’t take) and free time for the rest of us. Then we were to join up for a visit to Villa Carlotta and a brief tour of the town of Como. Villa Carlotta (a castle on the other side of Lake Como that had been built for a princess) was part of the package, and we were looking forward to it.

The group that went on the morning excursion made it to their destination and then took a boat ride on the lake before being dropped off at Villa Carlotta, as planned. At noon, the tour bus driver picked us and the others who had opted out of the morning excursion up, again according to plan. But after driving at least an hour along Lake Como through gorgeous mountain scenery, the bus was stopped by a police barricade and the driver was told that the road was closed.

The other group got to see Villa Carlotta but had to find another way back and returned via an excursion boat that took 2 ½ hours. They told us later that Villa Carlotta was overrun with a hundred school children whose teachers exercised no control whatsoever, and the same school children shared the excursion boat with them. That group didn’t see anything of Como.

For the rest of us, the driver took us to Como and said he would pick us up at 7:30 p.m. That gave us over six hours to entertain ourselves in a town with one or two hours of sights. We would have preferred to go back to the hotel but weren’t given that option. To be fair, it would have put a lot of extra miles on the bus and might have put the driver over his legal driving time limit.

After the first two days everything went pretty much as planned and we had a great tour. I highly recommend Go Ahead Tours and we will probably use them again.

Writing can also have unexpected detours. I thought I had my next few books planned. After my current two works in progress, I was going to write about life on the Erie Canal followed by a book on a lighthouse keeper’s daughter. Those are still in the plans, but another idea may take precedence. I don’t remember how I discovered it, but when I heard that many immigrants were stranded on Ellis Island for weeks or even months, I couldn’t get the thought out of my head. And even though I’m not ready to write it yet, I’ve already made lots of notes on a potential plot. I’m much farther ahead on it than on the other two, so it looks as if Ellis Island will be next.

Whether it’s travel or writing, we should be prepared for unexpected detours.

And they aren’t always bad.