The Night I Drove Over the Continental Divide
In the late 1990s, I submitted an audition tape to Fred Pryor Seminars to become one of their speakers. After being accepted into their training program and finishing the course, I began speaking from Hawaii to Delaware. Then it was on to London and the city of Cambridge, England.
Little did I know, one night, I was about to face the ultimate test of my professional speaking career.
After teaching all day, I drove to the Havre City-County Airport in Montana and turned in my rental car. While waiting in a line to get to the airline ticket counter, I anticipated a short flight.
At the counter, I was informed, “We started boarding a few minutes ago. You needed to check in earlier. You’re late. We have given away your ticket because you did not respond to the page.”
“Late?” I looked at my watch. There was still time. I said, “What page? I didn’t hear one. There must be a mistake.”
“No.”
“Now what?”
I was scheduled to teach a one-day seminar entitled “Grammar and Usage” the next morning at 9:00 a.m. in Boise, Idaho.
It was time to call the after-hours emergency number at the Fred Pryor home office. The woman at the other end of the line went to work immediately and started booking reservations.
The plan was to pick up a rental car at the counter where I had just dropped off my other car; drive 500 miles over the Continental Divide; arrive in Pocatello, Idaho; sleep a few hours; catch a plane to Boise, Idaho; and then fly that afternoon back to Pocatello, where I would speak the following day.
My motto that night: I can make it. The show must go on.
After renting the car, I drove long into the night. Snowflakes started falling. With no experience driving in snow, I prayed I would make it.
After midnight, exhausted and needing to rest, I pulled into the parking lot of a small store.
Sound asleep, a police officer knocked loudly on my window. “Are you okay? Do you know where you are?” He explained I was on a Native American Reservation.
Powered by the adrenalin rush after being startled awake, I drove on; checked into my hotel; slept a few hours; got professionally dressed; drove my car to the airport; and caught the flight to Boise. I arrived at the hotel where the seminar was being held, greeted the attendees, gave the presentation, and then flew to Pocatello.
Those who sat in my seminar that day in Boise had no clue of what happened the night before.
I passed the test. The show did go on. What an answer to prayer!
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