The wedding was perfect...we are not! #1

Good morning!

Forget Ihop's claim about fluffy omelets.  This place WINS.

I'm back from my lovely niece's beautiful wedding in the mountains of North Carolina.  I love traveling to the South.  The people are super nice and helpful, the food is unbelievable  (Two words...Waffle House!)  and the scenery makes me rethink my wish to retire to the shores of some huge  body of water.  (Sorry Oregon...)

Just one of the many views we
saw in NC.

Of course, you know that any driving trip 14 hours long and a big family event like  a wedding is going to bring out the very best in my story telling.  And this trip did not disappoint!  Try as we might...we are not perfect.

So this week I thought I'd do a three part blog on how my ability to get into unintended mischief made a beautiful, perfect wedding a series of hilarious events.

We got into the car at 5:06 AM Central time.  It was Hubby, Peaches, Peaches completely platonic friend Parker (who was a stand in for Skippy, who was unable to attend the wedding due to circumstances beyond his control), and me.  Everything seemed to be going quite well.  We stopped a couple times for gas and food, but for the most part, we were having a remarkably smooth trip.

Until we got to Asheville.  Karen, our female GPS, announced that we had arrived at our destination address, which would have been fine...had a Ramada...or any hotel...be visible in the dark of the Asheville night.  (It was 9:30 PM Eastern time, and we'd been on the road, thanks to a serious construction jam in Tennessee, 15.5 hours.

We realized our mistake:  NEVER have the 15 year old program the GPS at 5:06 in the morning...in fact, never make ANY 15 year old responsible for ANYTHING at that hour of the morning...but that's another story.  Turns out, Peaches had programmed the address to the wrong hotel in.  We were roughly 15 minutes from our actual location.  (Thank goodness for a data plan!)

So we got to our hotel, happy that one small mistake was all we'd had to deal with on the trip down.

We should have waited to celebrate. 

We booked two rooms and after much debate decided that the kids were going to be in one and we were going to be in the other. Go ahead, raise your eyebrows, but you lock yourself in a Hyundai Elantra with three other people for almost 16 hours and see if you want to look at anyone under the age of 40 again.

We got to the door of the first room, and it was very, very clear that this room was either already occupied or hadn't been made up from the night before yet.  Lights on, beds unmade...do not disturb sign on the door.

We got into the second room and the kids immediately choose beds and unbundled their crap while Hubby went down to the front desk and got the keys to a room that was actually ready for guests.  We then went to our room and unpacked.

Fifteen minutes later, Hubby's mom sent a text that she was at the Ashville airport and was going to take a taxi to the hotel.  (She was staying at the same place.)  Hubby said it was a short ride to the airport, he'd be a good son and pick her up.  So at 11:00 he got back into the car and headed out.

Meanwhile, the kids showed up on my doorstep to inform me of the three following things:

1)  There was a HUGE and SCARY bug of some sort terrorizing them.

2)  They had no bathroom lights at all.

3)  Peaches had dropped her razor in the toilet and was too grossed out to shave her legs with it now...so she needed mine because after all, she was a bridesmaid, I was simply the aunt of the bride. 

So I gave her the razor, told them to man up and crush the bug when they saw it next and said I'd call the front desk in the morning to take care of the light.

At 12:30 hubby returned, sweaty and exhausted.

"You tell me your story and I'll tell you mine,"  I said, thinking I had the better of the two stories.

"Well, I went to pick up Mom and got her to her room, which is right next to the kid's room, and the kids informed me there was a big bug in the room and the lights didn't turn on in the bathroom and Peaches needed a razor.  So I went down to the front desk to ask for a light bulb and the girl down there didn't know where they kept the light bulbs so then I asked her for a key to the room we were supposed to have and I'd swap out that light bulb for the one in the kids' room.  Which I did.  And then Mom stepped out for a smoke and locked herself out of the room, so I went down to the front desk to get her a new key.  So what's your story?"

Clearly, hubby had the better night.

"Ummmm, the kids came by to tell me about the razor and the bug and the lights."

So them, at 1 AM local time, we fell asleep in separate beds.  (Hey, you spend almost 16 hours in a Hyundai Elantra and see if you want to be closer than ten feet away from everyone again.

Tomorrow:  More locked out of rooms and the rehearsal dinner!