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Disclaimer: Travis Stoll is based on an actual person (I'm serious; check the acknowledgments in TLT), so I can't own him... And oh yeah, I don't own any other PJO characters either.
His journey:
Getting to the tour bus was a piece of cake –a terrifying, nightmare-inducing piece of cake maybe, but still. He just dropped a drachma in the road to call on the local taxi service – the Gray Sisters – and tried not to fly out the window as they grappled for their eye or tooth.
"Wasp! Wasp! Give me the eye now!" one said. It didn't have the eye or the tooth. "You had it yesterday!"
"No, give me the eye!" another shouted – the one with the tooth. "I'm the one driving! Besides, Tempest, you had it yesterday!"
"The eye is mine!" Wasp shrieked. "Not yours, Tempest, and not yours, Anger! It's my turn!"
Travis sighed and then yelled over all of them. "Will you just stop arguing, give the eye to the driver, and then get me to the tour bus before we crash? I'd prefer to face an army of monsters in reasonably good health, if you don't mind."
"Listen to the boy, Wasp!" Anger cackled. "Give the eye to the driver!"
"If the driver should have the eye, then maybe I should drive!" Wasp spit back. She launched herself at Anger, trying to get a grip on the steering wheel. Meanwhile, Tempest was going off on a rant about how Anger didn't deserve the eye because she had the tooth already, and didn't anyone care that it was her turn? At the same time, Anger and Wasp had advanced into an all-out catfight, stepping on the gas pedal the whole time, and Travis was screaming at them at the top of his lungs.
"Will someone grab hold of the steering wheel and drive already? Look out for that motorcycle! Watch the other taxi! Can't you see that that bus is about to run us over?"
"No!" all three sisters shrieked at him. "Because you have the eye!"
"What? Me?" Then Travis looked down and almost threw up all over the eye sitting in his lap. During their fight, Anger must have clawed out Wasp's eye and sent it flying over to him. "Agh! Get this thing off me!"
"Gladly! Just give it here!" Tempest cried.
"No, give it here!" the other two yelled together. "Before we accelerate into oblivion!" Anger added.
With a gulp, Travis realized that they really were about to accelerate into oblivion – the oblivion of three oncoming cars and two double-decker buses. Ignoring how entirely disgusting the eye was, he picked it up and flung it at Anger, the sister mostly in the driver's seat. Somehow, she managed to catch it, stuff it in one of her sockets, yank the smoky gray taxi car to the side to avoid the traffic, and slam on the brakes before they ran into the building. When Travis's stomach finally calmed down, he slumped into the seat in relief.
"No time for resting, boy!" Tempest told him. "That red double-decker is the bus you need!"
The one that almost ran me over just now? Terrific, Travis thought grumpily. But he obligingly fished out another drachma, tossed it to Wasp, who immediately started badgering Anger again ("Give me the tooth so I can bite it! You have your eye – now hand over the tooth!"), and climbed out before their argument could involve him somehow. Then he waved down the double-decker bus and paid for a ticket to New Jersey, thanking the gods that the Gray Sisters taxi service only picked up demigods in "Greater New York and its surrounding communities", as Annabeth had told him. He didn't think he could've taken much more of that kind of driving. He would've had a heart attack before he could get to Katie.
Two hours later, however, as the bus was stuck wheel-deep in mud, Travis would've given anything to get the Gray Sisters again. He bet anything Gaea was the one sabotaging his ride, and the only reason the Gray Sisters hadn't been bogged down was that – well, you can't exactly get a car made out of smoke stuck in the mud. Now what am I going to do? Travis wondered as he stood in the grass on the side of the road. Even now he was sinking slowly, and he knew that somewhere on that mudslide site, Katie was doing the same. He didn't know how much longer she had, and he didn't want to find out. He just wanted to find her.
Which is why he found himself walking over to the surly, muscle-bound bus driver to ask for directions. "How much longer would it be to get to the site?" Travis asked boldly, while the man scratched his head at his sunken vehicle.
"Eh? Kid, what're ya doing out here?" he answered grumpily. "I'm trying to figger out how in the name of all that's good in this world this could happen to my bus, and yer asking fer directions?"
"Just tell me how much longer, and I'll leave you alone," Travis promised.
"An hour. By bus."
"And by foot?"
"By foot?" the man laughed. "Kid, it's forty miles. If ya wanna walk that, be my guest. It'll take ya a week or more." Then he grew surly again. "Now leave me alone. I have more important things ta do."
Of course, Travis didn't let a little setback like breaking down forty miles from his destination stop him. He just hitchhiked all the way there, changing cars every five or so miles before a monster could catch up or Gaea could force it into the ground. The people letting him in their cars thought it was a little strange when he'd ask to be let out in the middle of nowhere, but they didn't ask too many questions. He thought they were really kind of glad they didn't have to keep him in their cars for too long. Only one family actually enjoyed having him. When he asked to get out, the dad said, "Are you sure you don't want to stay for longer?" And the two little boys were super persuasive, shouting, "Stay Tavis! Stay Tavis!" over and over. They were the first mortals to be excited about an ADHD demigod teenager occupying the same general space as them that Travis had seen in… a long time, and he ended up staying for a few more miles than he had intended. But, eventually, he did have to get out. (The mom was complaining about the transmission having problems and slowing them down, but Travis knew what the real cause was, and he didn't want Gaea getting involved with such a nice, normal family.) So he left them, just as he left the other seven cars that ultimately brought him to his destination. To the mudslide. To the monsters. And most importantly… to Katie.