This time, Noell got married.

There aren’t many people for whom I’d hop an airplane and fly cross-country just because they sent me a wedding invitation, but Noell is one of them. Sydney feels similarly, so Sydney, Jonah and I split a hotel room and rental car.

Sydney got in a little late, and Jonah and I got in a little early, which means we got there at about the same time. Sydney met us at the rental car counter, where she realized that she’d declined insurance and listed herself as the only driver of the car. She doesn’t have auto insurance, because she doesn’t own a car, so we decided this wasn’t brilliant and waited for her to change it. The quickest solution was for her to buy the insurance and keep the car in her name. This was fine with Jonah and me, because this meant Sydney was the designated driver for the weekend. She didn’t realize this until later.

Sydney also managed to leave her contact solution at home, so I found a 24-hour Walgreen’s on the Droid. We walked into the store at about quarter to midnight, and Jonah and I picked up a box of cold Yuengling while Sydney examined the contact solution options. We brought the beer to the front of the store, and the guy at the register said, “It’s almost midnight.” “So?” He just stared at me. “Is there a problem?” I asked. “You can’t buy beer after midnight.” “Well, it’s not midnight!” He scanned the beer and showed me the register screen which said something to the effect of “TIME RESTRICTION”. I showed him my droid, which demonstrated that it was still 11:57. He wouldn’t even get a manager. I really hate Virginia.

We slept until lunch time, then got lunch with Jonah’s Uncle at The Black Sheep. It’s rather popular and small, so we had to wait for over an hour for a table. Fortunately, they let us wait on their patio with drinks. The food was good, and the menu rather eclectic. For instance, Jonah got the “Roast Duck Hash,” which was pretty good. I simply got some biscuits and gravy, but they were excellent.

After a very long lunch, we got back to the hotel with just 15 minutes to get ready for the wedding. We managed, and got to the church with a few minutes to spare. It turns out that girls can’t actually marry each other in a Presbyterian church, so it wasn’t really a wedding. But some officials in DC were nice enough to marry them a couple of weeks ago, and since Noell’s a Presbyterian minister (working at a Baptist Church?), she wanted to get “married” in her church.

The reception was at an art gallery, and there was an ample supply of Abita. I made a valiant effort to deplete it, but to no avail. I got to see Noell’s parents, which was fun, but didn’t know anyone else there. Jonah made me dance, and some girls who were seriously impressed with my beard were strangely impressed with our dancing. I can’t dance.

After we got back to the hotel, I asked Jonah when our flight left. “12:35,” she announced. “What? Surely not that early.” “No, that’s what it says,” Jonah announced reading from her computer. Sydney said, “I’m leaving at 2:50, and I really thought our flights were at the same time.” I said that I thought so too, but Jonah assured us we were wrong. We decided to leave the hotel at 11am, so Jonah set her alarm or 10:00am. It didn’t go off, but Jonah woke us up by opening the blinds when the clock said 10:00am anyway. After awhile, she finally realized that it was actually 9am, so we could sleep another hour. By then, though, I was too awake to go back to sleep, so I gave up and showered. I logged on to the delta website to check us in for our flight. Which was scheduled to leave at 2:50pm.

Jonah apparently decided our flight number was our departure time. You’d think I’d stop believing Jonah when it comes to transportation schedules, but I keep falling for it. Luckily, all that happened is that we missed out on brunch with Noell, and woke up too early.

Our flights back were plenty miserable, but fortunately nearly on time, as compared with the 5 hour delays on the same flight the week before.