Day 7.066: A slight slip-up

Here's another picture from the "Rug City + marbles" session last weekend. It has nothing to do with the rest of this post.

On Saturday afternoon, I arrived at my hotel more than 30 minutes before the wedding was due to start. The wedding venue was less than 15 minutes away. I did a quick bag drop in my room then asked the hotel to call me a taxi. So far so good. A few minutes later a taxi arrived. Even better.

This is when it started to go less well. The taxi was not for me. I waited. I waited some more. They called the taxi company again (he'll be right there). More waiting. Even more waiting. The taxi company called the hotel (not a good sign). They would be twenty minutes. It was now 5 minutes before the ceremony was due to start. They called another taxi company - they said ten minutes (at least I might make it by the end). Then a couple of minutes later the first taxi company's taxi showed up. I got in.

It doesn't get better yet.

The driver confirmed the address with me - then spent what felt like ten minutes typing the address into his ancient Garmin GPS. Then we were off - down to the road and make a right turn. I wasn't sure of the route, but that didn't feel right. I tried to see the Garmin, but it didn't seem to be saying anything. A few minutes later it woke up - Recalculating - continue for 0.1 miles and make a U-turn. Great. Just great. I may have muttered something under my breath. The driver pulled over just before a blind turn on the 55 mph one-lane-each-way-with-double-lines, let a car go past us and went for the U-turn. He didn't make it. We were now doing a 3-point turn. By a blind bend. On a fast narrow road.

Then, as we were side-on blocking the whole road, a car came round the blind bend.

We survived that moment of excitement and a few minutes later, we were driving back past the hotel - some 40 minutes after I'd called for the taxi. We eventually arrived at the church. I was too rushed/happy-to-be-alive to be upset by then. I walked in just in turn to hear the end of a song and them being declared husband and wife - well that was the point I suppose.

The rest of the day was - happily - a vast improvement and I wasn't the last to arrive at the church - my friends walked in a couple of minutes behind me (for less dramatic reasons) only in time to hear the bagpiper lead the recessional.