Somehow, I ended up at the gate next to the one I was supposed to be at for my return flight to Guam, and I missed my flight. It was getting dark. I figured I’d have to spend the night there and leave on the next flight to Guam the following morning. Suddenly, all the lights were shutting off. Yeah, the airport was closing for the night. I wasn’t sure what to do. The airport was deserted.

Fortunately, a guy from the airport’s minuscule emergency services team (he maintained the airport’s only fire engine) was going home for the night. He saw me looking lost and gave me a ride to a “motel” comprised of cool little bungalows on the beach. When I stepped outside the next morning, I was on the most exquisite little beach I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen a lot of tropical beaches).

In the end, it was worth missing my flight just to relax for a couple of hours watching the ocean. But the 30 minutes of anxiety not knowing what I was going to do outside a remote, deserted airport with no services of any kind nearby, was awful.