Monday, November 21, 2005

As I sit typing this right now the wedding tour is on hold indefinitely. In terms of a driving tour that is. The Portland and Connecticut receptions were excellent and I'm sure the Chicago/Wheaton one will be this Saturday, but we've had some glitches along the way, and one huge one just came up. The plan was for my parents to leave this morning with a car from Connecticut and go on a road trip to wherever they want (Niagara Falls, etc.) and then meander to Chicago for Thanksgiving to meet up with Paul and I (who will be flying to Chicago tomorrow morning), and his family. Then sometime after the 26th after my parents flew back to Oregon, Paul and I were going to take that same car and start our drive from Chicago to Portland. The problem is: the car is busted. Thoroughly broken and unusable at this point, in the shop, with an estimated fix-time of at least a week.

My parents flew into Connecticut on Friday evening, the night before our Reception here, and also when we started setting everything up at the church (ironing tablecloths, placing tables, etc.). After the setup on the drive to a restaurant around 9:30pm the car started acting up--the heat stopped working, the car was overheating. We checked the oil and it was empty. It needed water. The power-steering went out, and the car died in the middle of the road three times. We had to ditch it.

Add a couple more ridiculous details to the wedding mishaps list. What an amusing list! But that's the good thing--we're still laughing about everything. Two main good things: we're married, and at least the car broke down BEFORE the trip and not DURING. Otherwise my parents would be stranded who-knows-where and might not have made the chicago reception without having to spend a substantial sum to figure out a way to get to Chicago. At this point though, we're not sure what to do. Here are some options:

1.) Buy my parents plane tickets to Chicago from Connecticut. Meaning that they will be stuck here until Thanksgiving morning because that's the only time left to fly without spending an arm and a leg. If this happens, then Paul and I will be without a car also, so we'd have to buy tickets from Chicago back to Portland and mail presents and extra stuff back.
2.) Let my parents take the only remaining working car (Paul's parent's minivan) on their roadtrip to Chicago. Then Paul and I would drive it back to Connecticut after the 26th reception and find a flight home from here. The problem with this option would mean that all members here would be without a car all week in Norwich, and we wouldn't have rides to the airport in Hartford (45 min away).
3.) Have my parents rent a car for their road trip to Chicago. An expensive option. Paul and I would then buy tickets from MDW-PDX.
4.) Take no action and wait it out, assuming the car is miraculously fixed in time.

The other semi-amusing part to all this is that if my parents do stay in Connecticut all week this will mean that our two sets of parents will live together for two and a half weeks. (a week in OR, a week in CT, and half a week in Chicago). The good news is that they actually get along. ;o)

Wish us all luck in whenever happens! We need it!

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