All of the roads home were closed due to the snow storm…

We flew up from Florida and were staying in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The plan was to drive through the northeast section of Yellowstone National Park which was six hours away. A major snowstorm came through the night before and closed all of the roads in the park as well as most alternative routes to get back to the airport.

Our plane was to fly out of Bozeman, Montana. To complicate things, the airline through which we booked our return flight tickets had cancelled over 2,000 flights that weekend.

Bozeman was about 5 or 6 hours northeast with only one open road to get there. What if we drove there only to have our flight cancelled? I’ve heard stories of people spending that past weekend camping in airports across the country.

Do we make the trip through the storm to Bozeman or rent a vehicle for a week and drive back to Florida or perhaps reroute via Denver? Bozeman was the wrong direction from home and there were storms still out there.

I remembered the quote attributed to Lao Tzu, “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” I almost said out loud, “Lao Tzu didn’t have to worry about catching a plane.”

We took a chance and drove the only open road to Bozeman. The drive to Bozeman was filled with spikes of adrenaline. It’s as if we were driving through an abstract painting of pure white ornate with geometric shapes of black.

Fortunately our flight was not cancelled. Even if it was, “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.”