With flights at airports throughout the nation canceled due to the massive winter storms, 4 strangers at an airport in Tampa did the one logical factor: rented a automobile and drove the almost 1,100 miles to Ohio.
Bridget Schuster instructed NBC affiliate (*6*) she was making an attempt to make her Thursday night flight from Tampa International Airport when it was canceled and one other flight was out of the query.
“The earliest they could get us out of there was going to be (Saturday) at 6 p.m.,” stated Bridget Schuster. “And we all wanted to get back there, obviously, way earlier than that.”
Ohio native Greg Henry discovered himself with the identical downside.
“In my head I’m thinking, ‘I already know there’s not going to be any more flights,’” stated Greg Henry. “Especially to Cleveland, especially knowing there’s a storm.”
So, Henry rented a automobile and determined he would make the drive. But he would not be alone as fellow Ohio resident Shobi Maynard joined in together with each Schuster and Abby Radcliffe.
“So as we’re just all talking, I think at some it’s just all of us were like, ‘Yeah, we’re doing it,’” stated Radcliffe, a Florida native. “And we just looked at each other and we’re like, ‘Are you in?’ ‘Yeah, we’re in. Let’s go for it.’”
The 4 vacationers stated the friendship grew stronger within the 2023 Kia Soul, regardless of the cramped area.
“We had a lot of cool conversations,” stated Radcliffe. “I think Shobi just asked a lot of, like, really neat questions. And then we were all just asking each other super random stuff.”
Schuster posted viral updates of the journey on her TikTok account, with 13 million whole views for the journey.
“My favorite part was, when I posted the TikToks,” stated Schuster. “Reading the comments out loud to everybody in the car, we were just dying laughing.”
The 4 strangers listened to Christmas music through the journey and grew nearer whereas all strongly suggesting not getting in vehicles with strangers sooner or later.
“We got into some very deep, deep conversation about our lives and what we’ve been going through,” stated Maynard. “It’s like we just these people but it’s like, literally from the beginning we just had that connection.”