It was our friend Chrissy's wedding and both Kelly and Kristen were bridesmaids. They were both very excited, which made them unsuspecting of any problems that might pop up. They had made it to the bride's house with no problems, everyone was there and the limousine had arrived. At this point however, the limousine was blocking Kelly and Kristen from getting to their car. There wasn't enough room for them to squeeze their chairs through. No big deal, they figured that once the limousine left they could get to their car and follow them to the church.

The limousine finally left with everyone in it and Kelly and Kristen finally got around to the back of the house where their car was. Unfortunately, once they got to their car they discovered that the bride's brother had unknowingly parked his car next to the van on the side that the ramp goes down. As soon as they saw this Kristen raced out to the road in time to see the limousine and everyone else drive away. This left the two of them alone at the bride's house, which was out in the middle of nowhere without any close neighbors.

Well now the two of them had a dilemma, they couldn't get the ramp down to get into the car and there was nobody around for miles to help back the car up. So Kristen headed out to the road to see if she could wave someone down to help. It was quite a picture to see a woman in a bridesmaids dress in a wheelchair trying to wave down the cars that came by (which were few and far between) Meanwhile the bride and the rest of the wedding party was on their way to the Church right then. The first few cars simply beeped and waved at Kristen who was frantically waving at them to stop. She was beginning to panic.

At the same time Kelly was attempting to find a phone that she could get to and try and call for help. The only place she could get into now that everyone was gone was the barn out back. So there was Kelly in her bridesmaids dress in the middle of the barn with hay and horses looking for a phone. There wasn't one to be found.

About the time that Kelly discovered that the barn was no place for a bridesmaid Kristen managed to wave someone down. The man stopped about fifty feet beyond the driveway and jumped out asking Kristen what was wrong. Kristen told him that she needed him to move her car because someone had parked next to her and she need to have him do it as soon as possible because they needed to "get to the Church on time" (had to throw that in there).

So this very helpful gentleman nervously went with Kristen and had to be talked through the whole process of starting their car with the magnet and then trying to back the car up with hand controls while standing up.

After a sincere but extremely hasty thank you Kristen and Kelly jumped in their car and raced to the Church. Luckily for the two of them the bride was going to be arriving in a horse drawn carriage so the wedding party had to stop a few blocks from the church and let the bride switch over to the carriage. Kelly and Kristen blew right by the carriage as it was approaching the church and raced to get out and be there before it was time for the procession.

The first thing to go wrong happened two weeks before they even left Rhode Island. Patty was driving with Kristen and Kelly one day and she almost got into an accident. When she slammed on her brakes to keep from hitting a car Kelly was thrown out of her wheel chair (they didn't have as strict a seat belt law back then) and her face hit the stereo and her knee slammed into the floor of the van breaking her knee. (Ouch!) So the day they flew out Kelly had a full leg cast on from thigh to ankle.

Still they managed to get on the plane successfully (Patty, Jerry-a.k.a. Dad Connors, Kristen and Kelly) and got to the island without any trouble. When they got off the plane and started to look for their luggage and a skycap told them that they should go down to the other end of the floor and take an elevator down to the ground floor where baggage claim was. So off they went to the elevator which ended up being very far away. When they finally found the elevator and boarded they attempted to go down to the first floor where baggage claim was. But they kept going up instead of down. They couldn't seem to get to the floor where they could pick up their luggage and meet the van that was taking them to the hotel. So they got out of the elevator and headed back to find help. When they found someone and asked about it he told them that the skycap could help them because you needed a key to take the elevator down to baggage claim. So they went back and found another skycap that helped them get downstairs.

When they got downstairs the luggage carousel had stopped and all that was left was their lonely luggage sitting there. They grabbed their luggage and started to look for the van that was supposed to pick them up. Needless to say that it wasn't there by then. So Patty called the company and found that they were closed. It was after 5 on a Sunday and pretty much everything was closed. They called all around that afternoon. They tried to get a school bus, a limousine, and even a regular van but nothing was open and no one seemed to be able to help them.

They finally decided that they should try and get a room at the hotel that was within walking distance of the airport. Luckily they had a room and they took it.

Now to this day Patty is still a little bitter about the fact that the hotel at the airport would not refund their money even though they weren't even there a full hour. But by that point it really didn't matter.

They finally made it to the hotel where Kelly and Kristen's rented electric wheel chairs were supposed to be waiting for them. Guess what, they weren't there. (Are you surprised?) So they spent the rest of the evening working with the hotel trying to track down the rental chairs.

The chairs made it to the hotel the next morning finally and their vacation at last started with no more major catastrophes occurring.

Several of the Connors cousins decided that they wanted to take a trip to New York together to see the Christmas Show at Rockefeller Center. It was doomed from the beginning.

Kristen's chair dying in the middle of Magic Kingdom and smoke started to pour from the motor. Kelly assumed Kristen was going to blow up so she tried to move everyone away.

Getting stuck in DC for a day because the car just wouldn't start.

A few years back Kelly, Kristen and I (Mike) decided that we wanted to take a trip up to Boston to see the Museum of Science. We were going with two other couples and were all planning on leaving from Kelly and Kristen's apartment. This was probably back in the summer of 1995.

It started out with problems because one of the couples was late in meeting us. We waited as long as we possibly could before leaving for the train station, but we did end up leaving without them. Consequently, because we left very late we ended up driving 90 to get to the train station so we wouldn't miss the train.

As we flew along the highway we were making our plans for how we would make the best use of our time. First we would drop our friend Keith off at the gas station where you buy tickets and then we would go park the car. One of the other things we had to contend with was the ramp that led to the departing platform was forever long. It started at the far end of the parking lot and ran the whole length of it. Then it went over the tracks and on the other side doubled back two times. So we parked the van and Kelly and Kristen raced to the other end of the parking lot while Keith's girlfriend, Krissy and I took the stairs. Figuring that we could stop the train if we got there first. Unfortunately as Krissy and I were trying to get to the stairs I dropped our bag of supplies and broke a bottle all over the place. We got to the train at the same time as everyone else.

So there we were on the platform, no one around. We looked for a conductor but there wasn't any around. We took it upon ourselves to pull out the ramp for the train and get Kelly and Kristen on. So I put the ramp down and got Kelly on the train as the engine started. We started to panic at this point because we had no idea if the train even knew we were trying to get on or not. Keith and Krissy jumped on the train and then Kristen got on. As I picked up the ramp and closed the door the train started to pull away from the station. Yikes was it close. All we could think of was the train pulling away from the station with Kristen or Kelly on the ramp.

We all sat around on the train foolishly saying that the day couldn't get any worse than that. We had narrowly avoided disaster so the rest of the day would be easy. Boy, were we wrong.

We made it to BackBay Station in Boston and got off to find the T line (Boston Subway) that we needed to take to Museum of Science. We couldn’t get onto the Green Line because there was stairs on the train itself so we looked at the Orange Line. The Orange Line could take us to North Station which was only a block or so away from the Museum. No problem. It was an OK day, a little overcast but not terrible. So we went to the little booth to confirm that we were reading the map correctly. The guy in the booth looked at the map and confirmed that the little wheelchair symbol meant that the station was accessible. Great! So now we make our way to the Orange Line and take it to North Station. For some unknown reason they didn't take Kelly and Kristen's tokens to get on the T so they got on free. We get out at North Station feeling pretty pleased with ourselves for getting there so quickly and commence our search for the Elevator. We went from one end of the platform to the other and there was no elevator. Just stairs and an escalator going up.

Alright, we weren't panicing yet. We figured that we would just have to take the T to the next accessible stop and then walk from the other side. It was at this point that we realized the next station on the map with a little accessible symbol next to it was at the end of the line way outside of Boston and definitely not within walking distance. I was annoyed!

"Come on, were taking the escalator," I said.

"OK, but what are we going to do?" Kelly asked.

"No, all of us are taking the escalator." I corrected her at which point I thought her and her sister's eyes were going to pop out of their heads.

"How are we going to take the escalator?" Kristen asked, looking a little nervous about now.

My plan, which I'll admit now, was not the best at first. I was going to have Keith get onto the escalator and hold the front of the wheel chair while I got behind it to keep it from tipping. But after some test runs and a little more deliberation our plan changed. Keith and I would both stand behind them and make sure they didn't tip or slide off the step as it came up. It worked beautifully. They got on the escalator without to much trouble and the stairs came up between their front and back wheels. They were actually pretty sturdy and we didn't need to hold them up. Keith and I just stood there for security sake. Of course there wasn't just one level we had to get to. We had to do this for two escalators to finally reach the street level. But we did make it to the street and our quick walk to the Museum.

But wait, the story doesn't end here. There is still the last part of the story to tell you. We hadn't made it home yet.

Now we were beginning to get nervous because we only had another 20 minutes or so to get back to BackBay and we didn't know if we would have enough time to walk all the way. Plus we had no idea where we were going. We made one more attempt to get to the Orange Line at Downtown Crossings. When we got there they told us there was an elevator a block away. Great things were looking up again. So we found the elevator and it was only big enough for one wheel chair at a time. Kelly and I went down first then Kristen Keith and Krissy. The elevator let us out into this tiny gated area with a token machine that accepted tokens to unlock the gate but didn't sell tokens. Kelly and I let the elevator go to before we realized that they didn't seel tokens right there so after another minute all five of us were squished into this little area. Luckily for us, you might remember that they didn't take Kelly and Kristen's tokens on the way TO the museum so we had just enough to open the gate and let us all in.

From here we took the T two (yes count them two) lousy stops back to catch the Train home. We barely made this train with a minute to spare.

The morale of this story is never trust the maps provided by the Boston mass transit authority and bring your own car, traffic can never be that bad.

Last Revised: 8/31/1999