You're Not In Kansas Anymore, MelBMarvis

Guess where I was this past weekend?  It goes a little something like this.  Actually, it barely goes anything like that song.   I was supposed to get to Kansas City on a Friday, but the first leg of my flight was delayed, which means I narrowly missed my connecting flight.  I spent the night at the Crowne Plaza courtesy of Delta airlines in Bloomington, MN.  Home of the giant ski jump.  The bright side is that the delay wasn't due to weather, so Delta gave me hotel and food vouchers and I didn't have to spring for that myself.  The steak at the restaurant was excellent.

The return flights were marginally better.  Once again there were delays on the first leg, but I managed to squeak onto my connecting flight before they closed the doors.

What about the time between the two flight experiences?  I went to the capital of Kansas to witness my cousin being married.  Privies were in ample supply, even that far away from Kansas City.  I didn't have to wet my feet to get to them either.  When I received the wedding invitation, I waffled about whether I wanted to go or not.  You know how I feel about weddings.  I debated further within myself and finally decided if airline ticket prices were reasonable, I would go.  Well, tickets were reasonable, so off I went.  I wouldn't say I know this cousin extremely well.  We grew up many hours apart, and we didn't see them on a regular basis.  But, family is family, and that's still a kind of special bond.  When I got to thinking about it, I realized it wasn't like we were total strangers.  I shared hotel rooms with her for two weeks in Ireland.

I was a big mooch and stayed with some other family members in their hotel room.  I'm good at wrangling invitations that way.  Six people in a small suite isn't bad, right?  I also pulled a Mel on the trip.  While waiting for an airline flight I went online with my "smart" phone and ordered a wedding present for the happy couple.  On the very last screen after I pressed the purchase button, it said there was an error, so I assumed the purchase did not go through.  Me being me (only the phone is smart, not necessarily the user), I didn't bother to check or confirm that assumption or do another order online.  I just put some cash in a card and called it good.  Then I went to check my e-mail on Sunday evening and saw that the purchase had gone through.  Whoops.  I think it's bad manners to Indian give a wedding present, so I'll chalk that one up to experience.  When in doubt, check for a confirmation e-mail.  That's the moral of the story.

That's about all I've got here.  I know you miss the bullets, but it just didn't feel like a bullet kind of trip summary.  It was interesting to see my cousins much more mature than I remember them being, and it was good to see some family again that I don't see very often.  And oh yeah, the wedding was good too.  Watch out for the red velvet cake.  It can have odd side effects - at least I think that was the culprit.

The wedded couple cutting the cake.

Here are a few bonus pictures that I scrounged up from my Ireland and Scotland photo albums just for fun.  We all look so young because that trip was seven years ago.  And it must be the good young-looking genes. :-)

Cousins (with the bride) near Killarney, Ireland.

The bride and family near the William Wallace Memorial in Scotland.

I had to post this family photo because I was derelict in taking any other pictures of the family at the wedding.