By Adam Stewart
From the Newsroom
Last week, I wrote about the start of my fifth anniversary trip to Wales with Michelle. Through the Tuesday afternoon of the trip, it was going well, even though we found we didn’t have the fitness to hike up the mountain like we planned.
That Tuesday evening, around dinner time, though, we ran into our first actually frustrating thing, which wasn’t really related to the trip. As we got ready to go to dinner, I got an email notification that my grocery order for pickup had been received and would be ready shortly.
There were three obvious problems with that. I hadn’t placed a grocery order. I wasn’t in Hutchinson to pick up a grocery order. And the order was placed for pickup in Thornton, Colorado, where I have never been.
Someone had compromised our Dillons account and was trying to fill up their pantry on our tab. I was able to get the order canceled, but before I could reset the password, the fraudster placed another order. By the time I was able to cancel all the orders, reset the password, delete our card from the account, and finally lock out the fraudster, they had placed three very large grocery orders, turned off text notifications, and tried to change the email address associated with the account.
I eventually was able to shut it down without being out any money, but it took long enough and demanded enough of my attention that I couldn’t enjoy the best dinner we had in Wales—so we went back the next night, and the chicken and leek pie was as delicious as I hoped.
Fortunately, that was the only bad experience we had during our trip. Unfortunately, when I woke up the next morning, I could feel the beginnings of a head cold that I am still shedding the last remnants of as I write this. It started with sinus pressure and congestion, so knowing we had three flights to get back home in a few days, we got to a pharmacy for a decongestant. It did its job well enough that the pressure in my ears during and after our flights was merely uncomfortable, rather than agonizing.
Being ill also sapped a lot of my energy during the second half of our trip. It wasn’t too bad that Wednesday, when we took a scenic ride on the Welsh Highland Railroad to the tourist village of Beddgelert. We got to see the historic bridge over the river through the village, ate some wonderful ice cream—all of the tourist towns we visited had local ice cream parlors—and had a very nice chat with some other visitors before getting back on the train. We also visited some small shops around the train station in Caernarfon, where Michelle found the selection of jams that she hoped to get on the trip.
Thursday in Caernarfon was when being under the weather had the most negative effect on our trip. I ran out of steam before we could explore all the nooks and crannies of Caernarfon Castle, the biggest and most imposing of the medieval castles we visited.
Friday was dedicated to getting ready for our trip back to Hutchinson. We dropped off our rental car, took the train to Manchester, checked into our hotel there, and found a New York-style pizza place within walking distance for dinner.
Then, on Saturday, we took the train to the Manchester Airport, from which we flew to Amsterdam, then to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and back to Oklahoma City. Both of our layovers on the way back were rushed, especially in Amsterdam, where we went as quickly as we could and still got to our gate as our group was boarding.
Sometime between Wednesday and Saturday, Michelle picked up the same head cold that I had. By the time we landed in Oklahoma City, we were exhausted. Fortunately, we knew we would be and had the foresight to book a hotel room for the night so we could stay awake on the drive home Sunday.
The relief when we pulled into our driveway around noon on Sunday was immense, and I was so happy to see our cats after nine days away. (Thank you for cat-sitting, Jace.)
I’m glad we went on the trip. Despite the stressful driving, despite getting sick, despite attempted fraud ruining a nice meal, it was still what we wanted it to be.
With that said, I am in no rush to take another trip nearly as big anytime soon.
Adam Stewart is the assistant news editor of The Hutchinson Tribune. He can be reached at adam@hutchtribune.com.