Planes, Trains, and Automobiles....

(If you haven't seen the movie "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles", these pictures might not make sense but they defined our vacation this Christmas!)

The time has come to blog our Christmas story this year. I've been putting it off.

So this Christmas Leo and I planned out our FIRST vacation on our own (and with family) since our honeymoon, which included REAL hotels, actual sightseeing, rental cars. The works! We've gone on some family vacations, but we mainly bunked with family, rode along in a rental, so on and so forth. It was truly our FIRST vacation, just the two of us. We were really excited!

As many of you know we got a dumping of snow here in the Oregon and Washington area the week before our departure which was totally quirky for us! School was cancelled for a whole week abut our Christmas vacation.



(our house and the street)
I need to add that the only reason we were able to do this trip is because last year we had purchased some tickets for Leo to go to Bob Jones university for part of the summer to continue his education. It didn't work out as planned (unfortunately) and we had some hanging tickets that we were going to lose if we didn't use them within the year. After 11 hours (I'm totally NOT joking) of Leo being on the telephone battling with airlines and and expedia and our strange one way tickets (the original plan for the summer was that Leo was going to leave from Oregon two weeks earlier than me, I was going to drive to Montana, drop of the dogs, and meet up with him in S. Carolina, then we would both travel back to MT and drive home). We had it all planned to go to DC, but we would leave from Seattle on seperate flights, and eventually both arrive in DC (at different times), stay in DC for a few days, and then rent a car and go visit Leo's brother and sister-in-law, along with their children, and his other brother from Idaho for Christmas. We were totally jazzed because it would have been the first time we would have all been together just because we wanted to, not because of any big event, we hadn't meant our little niece who is now six months old, we could see his brothers place and such....


So the plan was to rent a car in Salem and drive it to Seattle because it's cheaper to rent than to leave your car in overnight parking for eight days. We kissed our little snow pups good bye,got a fun little car from Budget, and were ready to go.

(Logan having fun in the snow!)
(Our rental car)
That's when the storm hit. We made it in one piece up to Seattle, but by the skin of our teeth. We had a few hairy moments were I wasn't sure if we would see another Christmas. We made it though, and our flights said they were still a go.

(view from our hotel window)

The following morning we woke up and the snow and ice was thick in Seattle. We got a call about Leo's flight, that it had been cancelled to Washington DC. We made a phone call and waited for two hours on the phone to get a flight rebooked for him to arrive in Baltimore (an hour away from DC) figuring he could ride the train.

(Leo waiting for two hours on the phone..... listening to the same repetitive TERRIBLE seven notes on the piano and an annoying clicking sound. You would think with technology today they could at least give you some better music!)
While he listened I went out (coughing up a LUNG) and chipped and inch thick of ice off the car with a Snapple bottle top, until this nice man let me borrow his ice scrapper. Thank you to the nice man somewhere out there!
We finally get things all set, my flight which has a layover in Chicago is still a go... Leo has a layover in Newark. We get to the airport and zip through security (if you can call half stripping down in the middle of a public place~zipping through).

We figured that I would try to get on stand-by to Chicago so that maybe I can get into Washington DC earlier. As I am waiting to get on stand-by we notice some of the flights coming up as cancelled and we hear people saying that the boards are not updated, that tons of flights are cancelled. Leo advices me to take my normal flight just in case he can't get out.

Leo finds out they are shutting down all flights for the next two hours. This would have kept him from getting his connection in Newark. This also means that I won't get connections in Chicago.

We decided to cancel our vacation.

That night over 3,000 people stayed the night in the airport and all hotels were booked within a 9 miles radius of the airport. Leo called, and we were able (by the grace of God) to get a hotel room. Then next adventure was getting a rental car. We called Budget... nothing until next year, called AmTrak.... totally booked, called Greyhound..... shut down, we finally called Hertz... they had one car...one VERY EXPENSIVE car. But it was our only way home. So....
(Leo and I went to the restaurant next to our hotel... This picture is a picture of Leo praying that we will be able to get a car and not be stranded in Seattle without a hotel and no transportation!)

For the next two days we hung out in Seattle. Me coughing up a lung and getting sicker as they days go by. The first night we walked down to the local gas station (no transportation) and bought some cough syrup from a man whose name was probably Abib or Ali or something and ate at this really swanky diner... (Re-read that with a note of sarcasm!)


(You know it's classy when they serve your condiments like this!! Fresh flowers even!)

(Us waiting in the bus station for the metro)




(Seattle in the snow!)

When we left we got a sporty little vehicle. The roads were good until we hit Portland, and beyond Portland we hit traffic. We sat in traffic sluggishly moving along at a break neck 5 miles per hour. A semi truck had jack-knifed on the freeway, so we waited... and waited.


(We didn't actually see the semi..... so this is off the internet... but it would have been a seen just like this!)
You know it's bad when you realize you need to use the restroom and you start searching for ANYTHING that could hold liquids in the vehicle, and finally come to the dreadful though that you might just simply have to go in your own pants! Thankfully we got to a rest area in the knick of time!

(Something that would have been really handy on this trip!!!)

href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQLug2Voevc2UssE-InXGTZbUD-8Kc9m9Lw-c9vPinz989H2lXh-GVBMBMHMdJwwfCVkkXliP4yGxw-9TpDVXPwxScBPCOeCBIgjPWivcfJvgJEXWPfx4iL82Bc0Htf-703DehmX2uTxM/s1600-h/DSC04610.JPG"> (Leo having so much "fun" driving in traffic...let's just say the gift of patience is a hard one for Leo in any kind of traffic!)

We got home after 7 hours of driving from Seattle, but later heard worse horror stories. Apparently they shut the freeway down right after us. We were thankful to be home.

Of course. Upon arriving we realized we had no Christmas tree (but plenty of sad ones crushed by the snow in the front yard!), no presents, no Christmas treats, no family, church was cancelled.... so our Christmas we spend simply rejoicing in Christ. It was actually really nice, and are considering doing this for the years to come. It was truly a Christmas to be thankful to HIM in so many aspects. (Course we would have really liked the family portion of it all!)

(Our poor trees. We'll see if they survive!)
We went shopping the next day, and realized how much people were spending simply to get a present under the tree by December the 25th. What a rip off! We ended up getting antibiotics for me and they kicked in immediately! I'm better now.

All in all... despite the horrors of travel and the absence of family, Christmas was good. Happy Birthday Jesus! The day was truly HIS!