It’s normal to attend your friend’s wedding. But, it’s crazy to schedule a court hearing the day before and only give yourself 4 days to do it when you have to travel from the other side of the country. The west coast to the east coast of the US and back through Portland, Chicago, Philadelphia, Lancaster, and Manchester.
So here was my schedule. Last Wednesday evening I head down to Portland, OR to stay overnight and catch a 7:30 am flight to Philadelphia, PA via Chicago, IL the next morning. I got in to Philadelphia Thursday afternoon around 4:20. To get to my hometown I took a SEPTA regional rail from Philadelphia International and transfered at 30th Street Station to catch the 6:42 pm Amtrak Keystone to Harrisburg. A friend picked me up at the station in Lancaster and we meet my parents for dinner. The next morning I appear as a witness in a magistratial hearing (mentioned here previously) for a good friend of mine (more on that) at 10:30. My plane to Manchester, NH left Philadelphia at 6:20 pm. My friend drives me to the airport. The plane is late arriving in Manchester and it’s 9 o’clock by the time I get my rental car. With a 2 3/4 hour drive ahead of me I decide to have dinner in Manchester and find a lovely little Irish pub (I can recommend the clam chowder).
The drive to Stowe, VT was uneventful (other that the fact that I discovered a great radio station), but I don’t get in until 12:15 am. When I got to the hotel reception was closed, but one of the staff members was playing solitaire. She asked me if I was Tyler (I always find it unnerving when strangers know my name) and directed me to an envelope by the desk containing my room keys and directions to the room.
How I got the room deserves a little back story. The inn was one of the few in town that allowed pets and since one of my roommates and I were going to be the dog handlers for the wedding (more on that) I thought it would be good to have the option of keeping the dogs in the room. I called about 3 months in advance of the wedding. Which should have been enough time even during the peak of skiing season. But there was a snag. The weekend of the wedding there was a group of 120 school children coming from England that weekend. The woman I talked to on the phone was very nice and managed to move some of the kids around and gave me one of their family rooms for a double rate. This ended up being split between 3 people, so the end cost was actually very reasonable for two nights. When all of this was setup I was back in Boston getting ready to board the T to go home for the evening. I lost the paper that I wrote the confirmation number down on. It ended up that about 2 months later I had to spend about 40 minutes on the phone to get the room information. Why so long? Well they spelled my last name wrong, a common occurrence. The lesson learned was to always have your confirmation number and spell your last name slowly if you are talking on a cell phone in a train station.
The wedding was the following day. When I was buying the plane tickets I was considering leaving on Saturday evening. Knowing that was a bad idea, I opted to leave the following afternoon at 3:20 out of Manchester, NH. The Manchester airport is small and I was able to get to the airport about 45 minutes before my flight was leaving. After a little incident with security I was lined up for my flight back to Portland, OR with a 2 hour layover in Chicago, IL.
All went well and I even got into Portland about 40 minutes early. But, I still had to drive 3 1/2 hours back to Tri-cities, WA. I don’t know what time my body thought it was, but I was really fighting to stay awake and I don’t think that I have been that tired for a long time. When you travel like this it really makes you miss your home base, your bed, and your own bathroom. You just know where everything is and things are just a little bit easier.
Would I travel like this again? Well, no. Next time I am on the east coast I will have more vacation time and will not have to be so insane. In the end I know that I am crazy and way too dedicated to my friends and my job.
