Manhattan to Hartford in '03 during the gigantic snowstorm.

I had landed the night before at EWR on LH from FRA. The airport was essentially closed save for the foreign traffic that was already enroute because some 18" of snow had been dumped on the city.

Amtrak was down and all the EWR area hotels were jammed - some said they had 40 to 50 folks camped out in their lobbies waiting for a room to open. Almost no taxi cabs available and a two-hour taxi line.

I (along with three fellow F/J pax) found a limo driver willing to transport us into the city (where there were rooms) for a mere $75 a piece. The drive took almost two hours but we got rooms for the night.

Amtrak was barely running the next day and I HAD to be in Connecticut (where they didn't get brutalized like the city) so I found a driver willing to negotiate and drive me to Hartford.

I ended up paying close to what I would have paid for a first class Amtrak ticket, so not too bad... don't remember the exact fare, but I had to write a novel to attach to my expense report to explain all the weirdness (why I routed to CT from DFW via FRA, how I ended up in midtown Manhattan, and why I had a couple hundred in taxi receipts on a trip where I should have had a rental car).