Saturday, December 26, 2009

The Wedding Trip

While we had a wonderful Christmas here with Pat & Betty, there was more than plenty of drama for our son Jeremy and Elisa as they left Shreveport, Louisiana with Tighe, our oldest son and their best man. They pulled out around 3 p.m. Central time and hit traffic immediately, being Christmas Eve. They were heading for Las Vegas for the Little Chapel of the West, where Elisha's parents and all the guests are waiting to see them get married on Dec. 27th.

Jeremy said it seemed to take forever to reach Dallas, but when they arrived, they hit a wall of traffic. I'll correct this later if I'm way off the mark, but I believe it took them four hours to get through Dallas. Then things got really bad. The next morning they called from just outside Witchita Falls, where all the roads were closed due to weather related traffic accidents. They were sitting, doing nothing, and couldn't proceed in any direction. At that point it had taken them about nineteen hours to make a seven hour drive. Not good.

They finally got rolling and everything looked good. He called last night and said, "Mom, are you sitting down?" He sounded shaken, and I pictured crumpled fenders, the car in a ditch and an ambulance pulling away. Never ask your mother that question when she can't see if there's blood. Just spill the news. It's far less painless. The car overheated and broke down in New Mexico. Because it's a Prius, hybrid, only the dealership can "turn it back on" to see what's wrong, so even if it's just a hose, it's going to cost them several hundred dollars. (I feel a soap box moment coming on, but I'll save it for another day.)

Of course dealership is all the way in Albuquerque, 150 miles away. The tow truck can't pick them up until 7 a.m. That means a hotel had to be rented—very expensive in Santa Rosa. And once they get there, if the car can be fixed quickly, they still have a nine hour drive before the wedding. The wedding is tomorrow, so there's still a chance...

We'll be heading out to Las Vegas ourselves at 7:30 this morning, and keeping the faith for the best. We'll be praying, of course, and staying by the cell phones—thank goodness for technology! At least they're not out looking for a payphone...

3 comments:

Patricia Stoltey said...

Oh, goodness, what a story. I'll keep my fingers crossed that everything turns out okay.

sherrie said...

UPDATE (from Kathleen via phone call):
The kids are back on the road and expect to check into their hotel in Las Vegas at about 11:00 p.m. Barring any further drama, the wedding will take place as planned tomorrow! YAY! What a story they'll have to tell.

Sharon and Marvin said...

Hope all goes well and they make it as scheduled. Best wishes to this sweet couple and family. They'll sure have stories to tell their children one day...did they take pictures along the way?