From PRX, this is the Moth Radio Hour.

I'm your host, Chloe Salmon.

When I was younger, I imagined that future Chloe's biggest moments would stem from

grand excursions. Maybe I'd climb Mount Everest or trek through a rainforest. As I got older,

I found that I covered a lot less ground than I would have expected. The 20 minutes it took to get to

the movie theater for my first

date. The two-hour drive to my college town, my freshman year. The plane ride to New York when I moved

here to start working at the moth. I haven't made it to Mount Everest, but I've grown a deep

appreciation for smaller journeys and the unexpected and wonderful places they can take us.

So in this episode, tales of journeys great and small, from across the world to around the corner.

Our first story is from Gina Granter, who told it at a story slam in New York City, where WNYC is a media partner of the Moth.

Here's Gina.

It was 8 a.m. on New Year's Day, and I was sitting on an Amtrak train in Penn Station, bound for Montreal.

20 hours earlier I had flown into, bound for Montreal.

20 hours earlier I had flown into Newark from Montreal with a plan.

To spend one afternoon in New York, vintage clothes shopping, to ring in the New Year laughing at the comedy cellar, to stay up all night because I save on a hotel and then get on the 8 o'clock

Amtrak and go to sleep for the 11-hour ride home. And I had a seat for two and I was stretching

out and I was just about to fall asleep. And we hadn't left the station yet. And I hear a voice say, is this seat next to you taken?

And I begrudgingly said no, because I really wanted to sleep.

And the guy who was talking to me was pretty handsome guy around my age,

dark hair and a little bit of a graying beard.

And he had a novel in his hand, and he didn't smell like cigarettes, so it could be worse.

...