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Wedding Planning; Unplanned Early Departure from SoVA

As you may have read in Melissa’s LiveJournal, the weekend didn’t exactly go as planned. You can read many of the details over there.

Melissa and I met with my family in Bedford on Friday night and had a nice big discussion about the wedding and what was done and what still needs to be done and so on, which both helped me maintain my sanity about it and figure out where to go from here. It was a good, productive meeting.

Melissa and I are going to try to get the honeymoon lined up this week, and we’re going to get a nearly-final invite list together, and I’m probably going to actually pick some groomsmen (imagine that).

Saturday, I spent much of the day working in my old room. I made drastic progress, and was planning to get things pretty well finished up on Saturday night (since Wes was over in the later afternoon and distracted me from finishing before dinner).

I got a call from Melissa mid-day telling me that things weren’t looking too good with her grandfather out in Arizona. Just after dinner, I got another call—Melissa’s dad was going to have to fly to Phoenix on an early flight out of Baltimore/Washington International Airport (BWI).

Melissa asked if it would be possible for me to drive him up, which was—of course—a non issue. The question was not whether I would drive him up; the question was how on earth I was going to do it.

After talking with my parents to determine a reasonable course of action, we decided that we would get things packed up and leave as quickly as we could. That, of course, presented challenges on its own (like getting a prepaid cell phone for Melissa’s dad, getting packed from scratch [Melissa and I had the advantage of being mostly packed already] and so on). We didn’t end up leaving Bedford until about 10:00 p.m. on Saturday.

Now, the trip from Bedford to my apartment in Fairfax is about 3.5 hours when traffic is clear (which, thankfully, it usually is at night). BWI, while branded as an airport for both Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, DC, is much closer to Baltimore—a full hour from Fairfax (again, when traffic is clear). After a lengthy stop at IHOP in Charlottesville for food and coffee and a brief stop in Fairfax, we finally pulled into the BWI hourly parking garage around 3:45am on Sunday.

Check-ins at BWI don’t start until 4:30, so we had to hang around for a while. Once Melissa’s dad was checked in, Melissa and I left for Fairfax—another hour’s drive—and finally got home near 6:00 a.m..

As Melissa explains in her LJ, “Grandpa knew dad was coming and waiting for him. He opened his eyes when he got there. Dad got to spend grandpa’s last few precious moments of life with him.”

I’m obviously saddened by the loss of Melissa’s grandfather, but I’m glad I could help Melissa’s dad be there when he needed to be. Melissa and her family have thanked me profusely for helping, but the fact is that any respectable human being would have done exactly what I did. It really wasn’t anything special (though it nearly breaks my record for near-continuous driving).

Anyway, my prayers are with Melissa and her family.

Scott Bradford has been putting his opinions on his website since 1995—before most people knew what a website was. He has been a professional web developer in the public- and private-sector for over twenty years. He is an independent constitutional conservative who believes in human rights and limited government, and a Catholic Christian whose beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from George Mason University. He loves Pink Floyd and can play the bass guitar . . . sort-of. He’s a husband, pet lover, amateur radio operator, and classic AMC/Jeep enthusiast.