Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Brace yourselves, this will be a long one.

I don't quite know where to start with recapping this past weekend. I suppose some background would be helpful. We were given buddy passes to use for flying on Southwest from a friend of Ashley's, and this weekend came up where we felt we shouldn't spend the moolah on flying home, but wanted to make it happen as there were many fun things happening - namely, the youngest of the Shugart cousin's graduation and the wedding of our dear friends. Unfortunately, we were unable to make an appearance at the wedding, but we did make it for graduation! It was a surprise to Lance, and we were able to make it in on Friday night and to his house to be there waiting when he got home. Needless to say, he was super stoked to have his only other male cousin there to celebrate for the weekend.

We were up way later than we should have been friday night, got up Saturday morning and hit Ashley's favorite breakfast spot in K-town, Snooty Pig. Once we had full bellies, we headed back to the house, and soon headed to graduation. There was apparently some seat nazi that Lisa had to deal with in saving seats for everyone and all of the family had to split up, but it only made it more interesting. We endured the 2 hours of graduation (could have been worse) and were happy to be there to celebrate with the Millers/Shugarts!

The lovely Millers!

Man, man, man, man, manly man....

Ash and his Meme.

After the ceremony, the party continued at the Miller house...an evening full of food, family, and friends...couldn't have been better.

We were able to spend breakfast with the Shugarts on Sunday morning and then headed back to my parents house for a bit and then make our way to the airport.

PLANES...

We were booked on a flight for 6:25 that night, and the friend of Ashley's who was helping us with the buddy passes told us the flight wasn't full and that we shouldn't have any problem getting on that flight (which would take us through Houston and then to Baltimore). Well, by the time we got to the airport and to security, we had been informed that odds were not looking good for us making it home that night. You can imagine the stress that set in, knowing we needed to be at work the next day! So I go into freak-out mode and luckily Ash went into fix mode - plan B was looking like a flight to Houston, then hopefully catching a flight to Philadelphia. At that point, we would have to find our way to DC, but flying was not an option. All other options weren't looking like viable options as the flight before the original one we should have been on was cancelled, throwing everything into chaos for the evening. Every flight we looked at would leave us in another city with a large possibility of getting stuck. So it was looking like Philly was our best option....and let me point out, all of this decision-making took place in a matter of a 10-minute time span (thanks to quick-acting on Ashley's part!).

So we hopped on the Houston flight, landed there, booked it to the gate for the Philly flight, waited there for the green light and were able to board there at the last minute. We arrived in Philadelphia at 11:45, and found out an amtrak train would be leaving Philly, headed to DC at 12:30.

TRAINS...

The amtrak station, of course, was not at the same place as the airport so we had to hop on a commuter train. The commuter train was set to arrive at amtrak at 12:30, yes, the same time the amtrak was set to depart. We said our prayers, crossed our fingers and toes, and ran like the wind once we got to the station. Ash said "we have to try"...let me back up, if we missed this 12:30 train, the next would not be until 4:40, leaving us to find a hotel for only 2-3 hours and then arrive back in DC at 7 am, run home to let the dogs out and go to work, obviously not ideal. So we get to Amtrak at 12:30 on the dot and move as fast as our legs will take us. We made it to the gate to see that the train was, get this, delayed.30.minutes. Never in my life have I been more happy to see something delayed. This meant we would be on that train, getting back to DC around 2:45, but it meant no hotel necessary!

We boarded the train (hallelujah) and were luckily able to get our own rows and sleep the whole way back to DC. The down side of getting in at this time is Metro is no longer running, leaving cabs as the only option as we were too far to walk with all our luggage.

AUTOMOBILES...

So we make our way out to the cab line, full of the people that were just on our train, and quickly notice something odd happening. Cab drivers have parked their cars and are walking up and down the lines asking for people going to Virginia or Maryland. Union Station is only about 2 miles from our house, meaning we needed about a 5 minute cab ride within the district. It took a minute for us to figure out what was happening, but it became clear that the cabbies only want to take the people going out to the 'burbs because it's the biggest fares. They were packing their cars as much as possible and slowly but surely we made our way to the front of the line. By that time, we realized the guy in front of us was heading to the same area we were, and he had actually run into a friend in line going to the same place so we had the 4 of us needing one cab to one stop. So the next cab pulls up, one of the guys tells him where we need to go and the CAB DRIVER SAID NO! You should have seen the chaos that ensued....we were paying customers and they turned us down because we weren't going to VA/MD. At 3:15 am, this is not where you want to be. Ashley was dialing the cab company, the two other guys were trying to convince this guy to take us and finally he caved. He was clearly unhappy, but sir, please do your job. I know this sounds terribly spoiled, but after the rest of the traveling, I was running low on patience. We finally, finally made it home and fell into bed at 3:50 am, and set the alarm for 7:50 am for work. Needless to say, the Shugart house was in bed early last night and it all feels like a bad dream at this point!

I'm pretty sure this sounds like one big complaint of a blog, but it doesn't feel real so I need to document to give us something to look back and laugh on :) Overall, it was still very worth it to spend an important weekend with this face.

We love you Lancer, and can't wait to see what the future holds! Boomer Sooner :)