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Published: August 20th 2007
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The weekend of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, I flew to Tulsa, OK for the Christening of the newborn daughter of my good friends Kendra and Goce Janevski. Tulsa is not exactly an exciting vacation destination but my trip was quite stimulating.
The trip was problematic from the start because of the ice storms that swept across North America in three separate waves from January 11 - 24. On January 12, the Governor of Oklahoma, Brad Henry, declared a state of emergency for the entire state.
We're taking these actions so that the state will be in the best possible position to respond to the storm. I would urge all Oklahomans to exercise extreme caution if they have to venture outside,
Henry said. Oklahoma City and the surrounding areas were the hardest hit by the freezing rains. Approximately 40,000 customers lost power as a result of the storm on January 12, and over 120,000 lost power by the time the storms had passed.
The morning of Saturday, January 13 I left on time for Tulsa from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. While we were in the air, United Airlines cancelled my connecting flight from Chicago due to the amount of ice on the runway in Tulsa. By the time I arrived in Chicago there was only one remaining direct United flight to Tulsa and it was booked solid. My options were to
fly stand-by, take a flight to Tulsa via Denver, or return to DC. I chose option one and ended up on the last flight into Tulsa for two days! My luggage was not so lucky: it arrived on Tuesday, January 16.
Tulsa was covered in ice and snow, frozen as hard as ice. It took me approximately 40 minutes to drive the 5 miles to the Janevski’s. Not only was I carefully driving the rental car at the requisite 15 mph but I also drove about 10 miles in the wrong
direction because I got all discombobulated as a result of the blizzard. We were all happy when I arrived in one piece.
After a fantastic dinner and a quick trip to Target for clothes and toiletries, I headed to the Doubletree Hotel Tulsa-Downtown. I could have stayed with the Janevski’s but the hotel was only about two miles away and that seemed like a reasonable distance even with roads covered in ice. The temperature was in the 20s and the roads were ridiculously slick. I made it to the hotel with only a slightly scary moment of driving the wrong way down a one-way street. All of
the spaces in the parking garage attached to the Doubletree that were close to the enclosed walkway were taken so I continued driving up, looking for a space near the elevator. In my delirium I drove all the way to the exposed top-level of the garage. My initial attempt to turn around—on about a 30-degree incline—was thwarted when I hit the ice. The wheels whirred and the car refused to budge. I was terrified, knowing that I would have to back down the incline; I had this vision in my head of the car flying off the top of the parking garage…I survived.
The Christening was on Sunday, January 14 at
Saint Antony Orthodox Christian Church. I was a stand-in Godmother for Kalina because Kendra’s sister was unable to venture out in the storm. Kendra and Goce met and married in the Republic of Macedonia and both are Macedonian Orthodox Christians. I would try to explain the Orthodox ceremony but my description would not do the rituals justice. The pictures show what we experienced and more information about the Macedonian Orthodox Church can be found at: www.mpc.org.mk/English/default.asp
The rest of the holiday weekend was quite restful. Tulsa was covered in frozen snow
that was much better to look at then to venture out in. We remained cozy in the Janevski’s home.
There was only a slight delay for my flight out of Tulsa when I left for the airport. This was not the case once I had checked-in. The original delay was one hour but when my plane from Chicago to Washington was scheduled to leave Chicago four hours later, my United plane from Tulsa was still in Chicago; it had not been cleared for take-off. My flight eventually left but much to late to catch a connecting flight. I spent four hours in a Chicago Doubletree and arrived back in D.C. in time for work.
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