As some of you know, I was in Thunder Bay last week for a wedding. The father of my best man got re-married on Friday and I had the privilage of standing as a groomsman in his wedding. Since we've been friends forever, it honestly feels like one big family, and I'm happy for Al and Tab, and wish them nothing but the best.
The trip started out as a Charlie Foxtrot (look it up on urbandictionary). Due to peronal commitments and limited vacation time, I needed to fly out Thursday and come home Saturday, and since I'm cheap, this is all on airmiles. I check out the Aeroplan website and there are dozens of flight options and I should be in TBay around 4 and leave at noon...looks good. So being an Elite/Gold member of Aeroplan, I called up the "Priority Service" number provided and book the flight. "That will be $150 in fees"...what? On the web it was $35 for the exact same flight. "If you can book it for that online, I suggest that you do so." Click. All I can say is that Aeroplan/Air Canada sucks. Back online and I book the flight...everything looks good, I click confirm, and I'm told this flight is sold out. As are the next 4 I try. The only one I get to work has be arriving in TBay at 9:45pm on Thursday and leaving at 6:30am Saturday...could it be any worse?
The answer, of course, is yes. There were a lot of fierce thunderstorms in Toronto on Thursday causing AC to cancel the flight before and after mine, and cram as many people as possible on our flight. Thank god I wasn't bumped off. Okay, it's still good. Then an announcement on the overhead that our flight will be delayed a bit. More time to read my book, yay I guess. We finally get onboard around 5 (on a 4pm departure), taxi out to the runway at 5:30 and promptly taxi back to wait for clearance which should be "in about 50 minutes". This is just fricken awesome. Thankfully we managed to get off the ground around 6:15 and we're on our way! For about 30 minutes, that is, when the pilot tells us there's a delay in Toronto and we need to circle for a while. Good times.
We finally landed around 8pm, about 30 minutes after my connection should have left but with the weather, it's obviously late too. Keep in mind that I haven't eaten anything other than a small salad at noon, so I grab a Coke and some chips and start munching while looking at the gate. I swear, it said 8pm departure and as I blinked, it changed to 8:20. 5 minutes later it was 8:40, and we actually got off the ground at 9pm. Looks like it's going to be a late night. Thankfully that was the last of the delays for the trip, and it was trouble free to Thunder Bay.
That night I called one of the other groomsmen, found out (finally) that we'd be meeting at 1 the next day to get ready for pictures and the like, and crashed for the night. Next morning (Friday) I got to see my grandparents (first time since Christmas 2006), tried to swing by my cousin's place (it was her birthday that Thursday), have lunch with my mom (the only time I got to see her), and headed off to Al's place to get ready. Turns out that getting the suits at Moore's was about as painful as the tux for my wedding...a couple of the guys had their reserved shirts sold on them several times. Funny stuff.
We did the pictures before the wedding, and man was it freakin hot. I guess it wasn't hot enough, though, as we had to take the pictures in a greenhouse. Talk about humid...we were ready to die. Then it was unloading stuff at the hall, getting everything ready, and next thing I knew, the ceremony was over and it was dinner time. Nice BBQ theme, awsome food (at least the two salads I had), and lots of drinking and dancing (open bars rock for everyone who doesn't have to be at the airport at 5am the next morning).
Around midnight I decide to call it a night since I've got literally 4 hours before I need to be up again, and say my goodbyes to the groom and bride. Turns out that they have to take down some decorations and return them that night after the hall closes, and everyone else is way too drunk to help, so Kevin to the rescue. It was also a good thing as the groom couldn't find the keys to their truck, so they would have been stranded. All said and done, I was home at 2:30 for a glorious 2 hours sleep before heading back to the airport.
One hell of a rushed trip, yes, but also a lot of fun. Congrats again to the lucky couple, and it just reminds me that Jenn and I will have to make a trip back sometime soon. If only "soon" didn't mean next year. Such is the price of having pretty busy schedules. I hope to get some pictures from the rest of the gang as my camera died on me a few months back.
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