To Grandmother's House We Go

We are enjoying a wonderful Christmas with our dear, dear family in Michigan. Possibly even more than in past trips since this time there were countless times along the way we were unsure we'd even make it here…starting with plenty of doubt that we'd even get out our front door in the middle of Seattle's worst snowstorm in the history of forever last Sunday. The car we hired to drive us to the airport couldn't come so we loaded up our 4-wheel drive, tapped into the dusty recesses of our brains for snow driving techniques learned decades ago when we lived in a tundra-esque region, crossed our fingers and braved the roads to Seatac. We dodged closed streets and cross-country skiers but arrived at the airport in one piece. With dwindling time until our scheduled take off (and practically non-stop status checks to reassure ourselves that the plane was actually still slated to depart), we parked our car and shuttled off to the airport.

We gasped as we saw the long, long, long lines of people seemingly waiting to check in with our airline but quickly (and with big relief) realized our line was actually the little one tucked behind the ever-growing snaking behemoth that waited for Frontier airline--people waiting to reschedule flights that were going nowhere that day. The tiny line we breezed through represented those whose flights were still on.

Waiting for our flight to board, we paced nervously listening as announcement after announcement was made telling people that their air carriers were shutting down shop for the day. Horizon, Alaska, Virgin Atlantic…all passengers were told to go home or book a room. Finally after an hour’s delay, we took our seats with cautious optimism, watching snow mixed with sleet fall on the tarmac. The girls were excited to be heading off at long last but I wasn’t quite ready to relax yet--I had overheard the flight attendant tell the guy behind me that he wouldn’t bet $100 that we would ever take off.

When our plane did finally head out an hour later, it felt like a miracle.

We landed in Chicago, knowing we missed our connecting flight but hoping for another, only to learn the last plane out that night was destined for London. Lovely, but not where all our Christmas gifts had been shipped. We were told we could catch a flight to Toledo the next day but likely would not be able to get on another flight to Detroit for another 3-4 days. We have no family in Toledo. We didn’t want to go to Toledo. We didn’t want to hitch a ride home from Toledo. Hanging out in Chicago waiting for a potential flight to Detroit for days on end meant we might not even be home for Christmas. So…we decided to rent a car and drive the rest of the way. We weren’t the only ones; we joined hoards of weary travelers who were vying for an open phone line to the local car rental agencies. Three calls, three strike outs. Meanwhile, my ever helpful sister and her husband were working some magic on their laptop in Detroit and, somehow managed to book what we couldn’t from the phone: the last car to be had at O’Hare.

Did I mention it was 1am at that point and that our girls had been traveling since morning without nap and little to eat but M&Ms? There must be an award for children who endure it all with such patience and good spirits. They hung out for hours in airports, did mazes and workbooks on the flight, kept pace with us sprinting through the terminal to the car rental kiosk, dashed into the -30 degree night (in Chicago they emphasize the ‘chill’ in wind-chill) to catch the Budget-Rent-A-Car van, all the while pulling their own princess suitcases and carrying baby dolls. They fell asleep on Mark as I waited in the hour-long line to get the car.

They don’t remember getting into the car, the drive around Lake Michigan, or any of the stops we made for coffee. They slept through another snowstorm, one so fierce it reduced our visibility to about 20 feet and, when we could not see well enough to continue on, forced us to take refuge into the parking lot of a gas station in Paw Paw, Michigan, still hundreds of miles from our destination. Waiting for dawn, Mark and I questioned our sanity and rested as best we could in the freezing night. Hours later, we were back on the road.

Chicago is typically a 4-hour drive from Detroit. It only took us eight and a half.

Over the river and through the woods…don’t make me laugh!