The Great Wild Goose Chase

My editor turned to me Friday afternoon and asked me if I had time to look into something for her. I said sure. But now, I kinda wish there would've been someone else she could've passed the tip to.

There was a dead body found out in the wilderness earlier that afternoon and she wanted me to chase down the facts. So, I started to chase. When I found out where the cops were headed to I decided to follow after them, bringing along a photographer. Great idea right? Yes! It was! But even great ideas seem to fall to pieces.

I was obviously in a hurry to get to the scene of the body where police have termed it a "suspicious death," when I get pulled over for speeding. It was all bad from the get-go. When going 65 in a 45, there's not much else you can do but admit your guilt, which I promptly did. My honesty unfortunately didn't get me out of my ticket and it slowed me down in getting to the dead body.

My photographer and I met up after some horrendous traffic and went out to find the scene. Following every direction that was given to us, we drove on rocky roads for a half hour. Finally we came to two trail heads. We checked on both of them and no one was to be seen.

My photographer and I finally decided to give up. We went back by the main road when we ran into a couple of men coming off the dirt road we were just on. They worked for Bureau of Land Management and they were at the scene! Come to find out, we were given wrong directions and was one turn off from our dead body scene.

My photographer ended up going out to the scene to snap some photos even though the body was gone and I headed back to the office. From a few phone calls and a press release, I was squeeze out a few short paragraphs. In return for all my efforts for "gallivanting" out into the wilderness was a nearly flat tire and a speeding ticket.

The thing is, I'm not mad that I went out there, I'm just mad I didn't get the story I wanted, all because of one little error in directions.