Kip got married.
Last Friday, we loaded up Grammie and Hallie and her guitar and three extremely heavy suitcases, headed for the airport, where we met Carl, Evelyn and Ann and Walter, and jumped on a plane to take us to San Francisco. Wheelchairs reigned supreme, we were treated like disabled royalty, and not one hiccup happened the first 4 hours.
As we left Oklahoma, it was warm and very sunny. Hallie was wearing shorts and a tshirt, and I had on a light jacket and jeans. All good. When we landed in San Fran, it was drizzling and about 50 degrees. Not horrible, not great.
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| The wheelchair royalty in San Fran (had their own Pushers) |
Grabbed our identical Chevrolet impala rental cars (White for the bridal party) and promptly got lost trying to get back to the airport (from the offsite rental car place) to gather up the waiting wheelchair royalty. Grabbed Gram & Hal and ran down to Stanford to check out the university and get Hallie her own Stanford Volleyball tshirt. There ya go.
It started raining as we hit the campus at Stanford, so I knew we had a 4+ hour ahead of us to drive, to get to Yosemite and I had chosen the quickest route off of Mapquest to get to our cabin in yosemite.
Mistake #1.
Never EVER trust Mapquest. I went through the most random towns, and two lane highways I have ever seen. Plus, the drought ended whilst we were driving and sheets of water were on our windshield. SHEETS of water. I felt like we drove into a Tsunami.
Little did I know that that rain was the least of the excitement of the day.
I got major sleepy, since I had woken up at 3:15, before our travel day started at 6:30, and decided I would just stay up and pack and repack the same crap over and over in two different bags. So, about 2:30, I was nodding off at the wheel, in the tsunami.
I decided that if we stopped and bought umbrellas at a Target store in one of the small towns we were whizzing through on that God Forsaken route that mapquest was sending us, it would ensure that it would NOT rain on Monday, Kip's wedding day. Plus, I thought Gram could take the wheel for 30 minutes so I could take a power nap. Got in Target, and the bottom fell out of the sky. Hail, more hail, sheets of water so strong I thought the roof was going to fall off of the Target store. But they did have a snack bar, and while everyone in that town was standing at the door, admiring rain (drought for months) I totally passed out on a snack bar table and took a 20 minute power nap, while Hallie ate through a box of Hostess cupcakes and Gram had Target popcorn.
Four hours later, I was so thankful I had gotten that power nap.
We finally started driving into what I call, GOD's COUNTRY, and about that time, I got a text from Kip and it said that the Hall's (Brandon's parentals) had just arrived and they were required to put on chains (unless they were driving a 4wdrive) and it was SNOWING at the cabin. SNOWING. I'm in a Chevy Impala, and beginning to wish I had invested in the "INSURANCE", as I had already been hailed and rained on, now it looked like we might hit some snow. We are stopping and taking pictures with Hallie on the side of the road in her shorts, and it's not cold. Hit some snow, schmow. No way.
If you've ever been to Yosemite, you know that the roads are extremely winding and turny, and for a directionally challenged middle aged woman, toting a senior citizen back seat driver, and a 15 year old permitted, knows EVERYTHING about driving side seat driver....it was just more fun than I can put into words here. When we finally got to the entrance of the park (Found out mapquest sent me on the world's worst route ever known to man), they halted us at the gate and required us to put chains on our front tires....and HEY, they just happen to have chains right ahead for the bargain basement price of $89, and a happy man standing in the rain will install them. This is about 4:30 pm. As we are sitting there, griping to each other about the audacity of chains in the rain, it starts to sleet massively, and by the time the very wet installer has put on our chains, the snow is coming right down. I ask him how far to our destination from where we are sitting, and he says, "Oh about 30 miles".
30 miles. EASY. Midwest City to Shawnee. 25 minutes. Piece. of. Cake.
Come to find out that math class problem that always plagued me in 8th grade......'How long will it take to go 30 miles, traveling between 10-25 mph, in elevations of 5000-6000 ft, as the snow comes plummeting down? '
The answer is about 5 hours.
Five freaking hours. It was fun at first. I thought I liked snow. I was in control while the snow was wet, and those chains just worked their magic. Then as we got higher elevation and the fun, fat, wet snow, turned into a slick sheet of ice on the road, and the side of the road I was traveling was sitting on a mountain ledge that dropped 3 million feet off a ledge with no railing or anything to stop the sliding Impala to keep it from going airborne....all the sudden I'm spelling cuss words in my head, and things are NOT so fun.
Oh, it's funny now, that we lived through it, but at the time I was NOT amused that Gram was in the backseat just whispering prayers over and over and over, and Hallie, when she gets nervous, resorts to Knock Knock jokes, and "Mom, RELAX and ENJOY the NATURE" speeches, which were NOT appreciated as I rapidly approached nervous breakdown status as the road got SLICKER and slicker and more precarious by the second.
It is now dark. We have lost our maps on our phone, since yosemite has NO cell reception. My worthless piece of crap Mapquest map has been trampled under my foot, and I am past the tears and nerves stage, when a snow plow whizzes up behind me, and I am able to let him go by and follow Jesus in a 4 wheel drive with a bucket on the front. (Gram takes full credit of this, all those whispered (cough) prayers.)
I know Kip must be FRANTIC, and even while I am driving in my car, reduced to a whimpering mess, I vacillate between wanting to kill her for EVER picking Yosemite as a stupid wedding place, to just praying that God finally gets us there.
So God showed up, because about the time that snow plow shows up, Hallie's dot on her map wings back into action, and we are able to find the lodge, but not before Hallie has to jump out of the car and pee on the ground, and we have no idea which house is ours. (I envisioned one lodge in a remote area, not 100 in an RV setting). I got the idea that if I just HONKED, my people would hear, and would come. So I drove up and down these houses, just HONK HONK HONKING, and nothing. Nada. Not one welcoming flash of porch light.
Another snow plow came by, and took immense pity on us, and lead us to our lodge. A tearful, frantic Kip came tearing out of the house (OH SURE, NOW SHE comes when I honk), lamenting, "I can't believe it!!!!!!!!" and wanted to know why I was just sitting in the car, gripping the steering wheel, unable to move. "I may or may not have messed my pants, and I just need to breathe a second" I tell her, as she pulls me out of the car, dangerously close to tears herself.
But we are finally to our destination, and while our chains kept us on the road...Carl and his crew, weren't required to get chains, and their Impala dumped them off the side until they were rescued. Not the one million foot drop, because Carl is much smarter than I and actually came the RIGHT way in, and just barely beat us there at 8:30. So we are all, shaky, exhausted messes.
I'm afraid I wasn't very social with the Hall's that evening, I was still a desperately overwhelmed, "What just happened" freak, and just needed to go sit in a corner and suck my thumb.
Day one is complete. The Lodge is BEAUTIFUL and we are FINALLY HERE. P.S. I don't drive another second until we leave. Truth.
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