on how snow is the nemesis of humanity

When last we left our heroes, they were having a pleasant drive up to the lands of Northern Virginia for their Idaho open house....

THE EPIC HONEYMOON STORY.  (And following weeks.) - Part 2

So we reach my parents' house at 1:55 in the afternoon, perfect timing to grab a sandwich, grab my mom, and be on the road for the airport at 2:10.  Our flight leaves from Baltimore at 6:00, and it takes 90 minutes to get there, so we figure we've got PLENTY of time...until my mom tells us that we're supposed to be picking up my dad from work in D.C.  "Through the city?!" I think.  Ricky and I share meaningful looks.  He looks concerned.  For those of you who aren't aware, a very strong person could probably dig to China in the amount of time it takes to get anywhere in D.C. Friday afternoon traffic.  Regardless, I remind myself, we have plenty of time to get to the airport...

...until the accident on I-95.

An accident, we find out later, that was caused when an elderly man in a truck rear-ended a VDOT (Virginia Department of Transportation) truck that was on the shoulder of the road, presumably clearing snow (they have to truck it out of the city because there isn't anywhere to put it).  The man wasn't wearing his seatbelt, flew through the windshield, and died.  The accident happened in the early afternoon, and we hit traffic around 2:30, and we were stuck in traffic for maybe...45 minutes?  An hour?  They closed two lanes of the three lane highway to get everything cleaned up, so it was a process.  My dad is freaking out via cell phone because we're stuck there, so finally he decides to just meet us at the airport.  Instead of going the way we normally go to Baltimore (specifically, AROUND D.C.), he directs us on 395 and suddenly we're passing the Pentagon.  We're pretty much in the heat of the afternoon traffic at this point, and one (unknowingly) missed turnoff later, we're taking the long way to the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.  By "long way," I mean, "the way of 500,000 stoplights." So, dad hits the B-W Parkway before we do, but he overshoots the airport exit and hits heinous traffic in the backtracking process.  By the time we finally get onto the Parkway, we've passed the majority of traffic, but there's no way we're going to get to the airport on time.  When we FINALLY arrive, it's 5:30--technically, we could've let mom take the car back home (even though she and dad are supposed to be flying out with us) and Ricky and I could've taken our carry-ons and ran.  However, anyone who's ever been to BWI knows perfectly well that even though we could've gotten in line for check-in slightly past 5:30, there is no physical way we could've gotten through the line, through security and to the gate in 30 minutes on a Friday evening.  It makes no difference regardless, because we didn't even think of this until we were in the long-time parking lot waiting for the shuttle to the terminal.  When we arrive at said terminal, it is 6:15 and the flight is probably flying off into the distance.  At this point, mom realizes that she's left her carry-on bag at the shuttle stop!  So, she grabs the nearest shuttle driver she can find, much radio-ing occurs, and she anxiously waits outside for its retrieval.

Meanwhile, Ricky and I figure we can just catch the next flight out to Boise, right?  No.  Because of massive (for the South) snowstorms in Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, and every major southern airport, all flights are being redirected and EVERY SINGLE FLIGHT to Boise, "Why Am I Suddenly a Major Tourist Attraction" Idaho is completely booked until the next night...too late for us to make it to the reception.  Ok, we think, let's try Salt Lake City.  Wrong again.  Same reason.

Ricky and I are horrified.  Let's get some backstory:
-Sam Faubion and her fiance have driven approximately 12 hours from Washington to stay with Ricky's parents that night in preparation for our reception the next day.  When we find out there are no flights, they are an hour away from Burley.
-My aunt rescheduled my 8-year-old cousin's baptism for the following weekend so they could come to the reception.
-Ricky's second oldest sister, in post-medical school residency, actually managed to get two days off from the ER to fly up from New Mexico to ID with her four kids. 
-Someone in Burley has made us a wedding cake.  The cultural hall is lavishly decorated.  There are hundreds of people who have invitations to that reception.

See why this is a national emergency?  I, honestly, could care less about a party thrown in my honor, but what gets me is the fact that so many people will be disappointed after all the effort they made to be there.  Ricky and I spend the next few hours trying to call someone, anyone who can find us a flight.  We try Delta first and most often, but this is what we get: "We're sorry, due to extreme weather in the southeast and high call volume, we are unable to take your call."  I got Delta's answering machine!  No "wait for the next available representative," nothing.  How does a major airline just stop taking calls?!  And my poor parents are stuck with non-refundable tickets, by the way, but they're just focused on getting the newlyweds there.  After checking flights from Dulles, Reagan, and all airports within a reasonable distance and still finding nothing, we see that there's a 7:00 a.m. flight to SLC leaving from Dulles the next morning.  The problem is, we're not sure if the flight is full, so we may have to fly standby.  The other problem is, our tickets are from BWI, so we have to contact Delta and get them changed to Dulles.  Well, we all know how that's working out, so I wonder if we can just ask the BWI Delta representatives to change them--only to find out that they've all closed up shop and gone home because the last Delta flight--ours--has left.

Despairing, we decide to go home to my parents', get up at 4:30, leave at 5:00 for Dulles, get there at 6:00, and get our flight changed to SLC.  Everything goes well, until we get to the airport and I find out that our Delta tickets, since they were bought through Expedia, are actually United Airlines tickets (don't ask me how that works--I'm still trying to figure it out).  So, after waiting in the Delta line for 10 minutes, I now go wait in the even longer United line (Ricky is parking the car) for another 15.  Ricky catches up to me right before I reach the counter, and when we explain what we're trying to do, they send us to ANOTHER counter to rebook.  There's no line at this one, but by now it's 6:30 and the woman at our final counter says there's no way we'll make the 7:00 flight.  She is, of course, correct, but that doesn't stop me from bursting into tears.  I'm clutching my wedding dress, rolling a carry-on behind me, and trying to get my mononucleized body to run on four hours of sleep.  In other words, I am a hot mess.  The other counter attendant, seeing me crying, comes over to help.  Ricky explains that we're trying to go to our wedding reception.  As in, the celebration of our marriage.  This, combined with my weepy demeanor, is probably how we managed to score standby tickets to Denver, hoping to catch another standby flight to Boise by 4:00 that afternoon.  If we can make that flight, we're golden!

Our progression through the airport is accompanied by weird stares--I am, after all, carrying an enormous white garment bag that just screams, "I AM A WEDDING DRESS!"  After flinging it into practically every person that passes ("Excuse me, sorry, my fault"), we make it to the gate and find that someone (thank you, counter attendant who was obviously swayed by my tears) has bumped us up to numbers 1 and 2 on a standby list of over a dozen.  Miraculously, we get on the flight!  We're happy.  The flight goes well, I'm not feeling too sick, and nothing eventful happens on the way to Denver.  When we get to Denver, there is no snow.  None at all.  We left Dulles COVERED in snow, and the midwest has none?  As unfair as I think this is, the past few weeks have left me hardened to cruel jokes of the universe.  (Please know that I burst out laughing as I typed that sentence.)  So anyway, the flight we're supposed to be catching to Boise doesn't leave for like, six hours, so we entertain ourselves by eating airport food, yada yada, until we make our way to the gate.  We're numbers 1 and 2 on the standby list...this time for like, 20!  I wasn't kidding when I said Boise was the happenin' place to be this weekend.  I've got my fingers crossed as the plane fills up, but again--miraculously--there's one spot open!  I practically have to shove Ricky forward to go (because duh, it's his family and his friends and his hometown), and he finally does, and just as he's about to grab his ticket, the last passenger--a woman in a wheelchair--shows up.  We sit back down.  Ricky, in the only act of frustration I have EVER seen from him--flings the tickets onto the floor...and promptly picks them up.  (What can I say?  He's stable.)  In a last-ditch attempt to get out west before our scheduled flight at 9:00 (the time our reception ends), we check the standby list for the next flight to SLC--it has seven people on it, and we would be at the end. (I'm still around when that flight boards--no standby passengers get seats.)  We're not making it to the reception.

We notify as many people as we can, and wait for the later flight.  We figure the least we can do is get out there and see Ricky's sisters, especially since Maria flew up with her kids.  When we board the 9:00, we're starting to feel better--we'll get to see family, it'll be good, etc.--when Ricky's dad calls to tell him that one of his mission companions showed up unexpectedly to the reception.  Ricky's face just about shattered my heart into a thousand pieces.  The disappointment was painful to witness.  The flight to Boise was unpleasant, to say the least, and the flight attendants kept congratulating us on our marriage and it really didn't make us feel better about the whole situation.  Around 11:00 p.m.--two hours after the end of the reception--we make it into Boise, where Ricky's sister Ana picks us up and takes us back to her house a few minutes away.  There, we meet Ana's three adorable children--Eva, Carson and Bridget--Maria, and her children--Taylor, Miah, Caden, and baby Ryker--and Fluffy, the cat.  It's hard to stay in a bad mood with nieces and nephews climbing all over you!  Not only do Maria and Ana have us laughing in a matter of minutes, but within the hour I have 4-year-old Bridget sitting on the back of the couch to play with my hair.  ("It stays!" she says in astonishment when she flips my hair over my eyes.  She tries to mimic it with her stick-straight hair, but it just falls perfectly back into place.  She looks disappointed.)  Caden (5 or 6), comments that my ring is really sharp, and I tell him Ricky bought it for me so I could defend myself against predators.  Caden's eyes get really big. :)  Baby Ryker tries to eat my cell phone (he has this thing with gadgets--he also tried to eat Ricky's laptop), I talk to Carson about orchestra, and in the meantime, Ricky is switching our flight home the next morning so we can leave at 3:00 in the afternoon instead of 7:00 a.m.  Good call, because it's past midnight and I'm so tired I could even fall asleep with Bridget on my head.

Eventually we get to bed, then we say goodbye to Maria and company in the morning as they head back to the airport.  After a few more hours with Ana and crew, Ricky and I are back at the airport.  I'm disgusted by the whole business at this point, but as long as I don't have to spend any more time in Denver I think I'll make it.  And, coincidentally, I do.  We have a small layover in SLC ("Hey look, a temple!" "Where?" "There!  And there's another one!") and then make it back to Dulles at 11:30 without a hitch, grab the car, drive the hour back to my parents house, sleep for 6 hours, and leave at 7:00 to get to BV by 9:30 so I can shower and make it to work by 11:00.

Craziest.  Weekend.  Ever.  We still cringe when we think about all the people we didn't get to see, but getting to see Ricky's family made up for a lot of the heartache and headache. 

So why the title of the post?  Well, if you'll remember, the crash on 95 was because of a truck clearing snow.  If it hadn't been for the snow, the truck wouldn't have been there for the man to crash into, we would've made our flight, and it would've been peachy.  Let's say that the man hit something else instead and we still didn't make it to BWI in time.  Well, if it hadn't been for the snow in all the southern airports, we would've been able to get a flight to Boise and it STILL would've been peachy.

Thus, snow is the nemesis of humanity.  In all reality, though, that's way too much coincidence to be coincidence, especially since we did everything right and still we couldn't make it out there in time.  We figured--and still figure--that Heavenly Father had different plans for us that day.  Why?  I have no idea.  But that's where faith comes in, right?

[fin]