cough cough cough hack cough

Okay, so where was I before the walloping creeping crud knocked me bedridden? Ah, yes, Sunday. On Sunday we went down to Mandalay Bay's Bay Side Buffet for champagne brunch. They had so many delectable things! This was not a 'three kinds of noodle pasta, rubber chicken and tired fish' buffet. There was every breakfast item imaginable, from mini-bagels and smoked salmon to poached eggs and fresh fruit. There was a roast turkey breast, rack of lamb, grilled sirloin, crab legs, boiled shrimp, cheesecake, eclairs...okay, I have to stop now. Drool shorts out laptops, you know. It was a fantastic smorgasboard, let's leave it at that.

After that, we arranged to meet Sarah to share a taxi out to Badlands Golf Club, because Bo had had to go out there much earlier for photographic purposes. We met her at the taxi stand and that's where Typical Helly Adventures kicked in. The day before, we'd gone down to talk to the doorman to ask about the cab situation, the club location, how long to allow for the journey, etc. He knew immediately where we were talking about and answered all our questions knowledgeably - in other words, gave us no indication that it was an obscure or unusual destination and no inkling that there might be a problem.

So midafternoon we met Sarah, the three of us innocently piled into the next taxi in line and said, "Badlands Golf Club" only to be met with the most perplexed stare. Alan put it best: this driver looked back at us like a puppy, when you give the puppy a command and he knows you're talking to him, he knows you want him to do something, but he has NO IDEA what you're saying.

"I dunno where is," the driver says finally. I wonder aloud if we should get another cab, at which point he floors it and begins jabbering into his cellphone in foreign. The relevant point about him speaking foreign is that the jabbering goes on the entirety of our journey (which doesn't last as long as you might think) but because we couldn't understand him, we were unable to tell if he was getting directions from the person at the other end or if they were just as clueless as he was. Occasionally he drops the phone away from his mouth, turns around to face us (yeah) and says, "You know where is?"

Uh, dude - no we don't. We're from Georgia. You might have noticed how you picked us up at a hotel? on the strip? in your CAB? If that doesn't say 'tourist', in every language, I don't know what the hell does.

We tell him the street address and occasionally, amid the foreign babble, hear "Alta Drive" or "Badlands" but as I wrote, we couldn't ascertain if he was becoming more or less confused.

From her earlier trip to the rehearsal, Sarah knew that it was near Sun Coast, some new luxury condos. She volunteered this info and he brightened measurably. As our sighs of relief hung in our throats, he said, "Sun Coast! Good! You know where is?"

Suddenly, he sweeps from the second-fastest lane across the highway to the breakdown lane, right in front of the exit for Flamingo Road. The jabbering continues at increased intensity. I kinda thought maybe he'd gone the wrong way on the expressway and had stopped to get all the directions down pat before we set off again, but the jabber continued unabated and our unease grew as a whole bunch of nothing transpired.

"Uh...is there a problem?" I asked finally.

"The cab. I think it overheat," he replied.

Yes, the cab broke down on the way to the event that was the whole impetus of our trip out there.

He hung up the phone and didn't seem inclined to do anything but continue to sweat, so I said, "Well, could ya call someone else to come and get us? We have to be somewhere, we are going to a wedding," which seemed to surprise him, I don't know why, maybe he thought lots of people wanted to go to Las Vegas to sit beside the freeway, but with a hurt and perplexed expression, he summoned another cab.

It didn't take all that long for the second cab to arrive, but in the meantime the minutes seemed like hours, during which I agonized at missing my bud's wedding, showing up horrendously rudely late, all sorts of bad scenarios, but the next guy who arrived, though also of foreign extraction, had been living there for 8 years and knew where we were going.

We got there with time to spare, hung out with Matt a little prior to the ceremony and all was well. They got married, it was great, food was eaten, drinks drunk, toasts given, dances danced. I have lots of pictures up on flickr.

Monday we were going to have lunch with Flippy & Leigh-Ann but they had to cancel. On the bright side, Alan quite enjoyed Las Vegas even though he didn't expect to, so we hope to go again. As he put it, "I don't drink, I don't gamble, I don't want hookers - I'm SO not their target market!" but he had such a great time that he won't be hard to convince.

Instead, we checked out, shlepped our luggage over to Bo & Sarah's room at the Luxor (they were staying longer than we were) and went to eat brunch at their buffet. It was probably very good but I was losing my sense of taste already due to the invading cold, although at that point I thought it was allergies from all the fresh flowers at the wedding. We hung out, saw Matt, Tammy & Deke for a bit and then left to catch a cab to the airport. This ride went remarkably without incident - whee!

Except we were talking to Airport Cabbie about our adventures - teasingly asking him, "You know we mean MCCARREN Airport, right? You know where it is, right? You sure?" and he couldn't believe it. He showed us this book that all the cabdrivers are given free each month, full of free passes and discount coupons for clubs and shows and stuff (because those people want the cabbies to recommend their venues) and in the back is this alphabetical listing of destinations. Badlands Golf Club is right there, and the directions are a two-line description. It's like, get on the freeway, get off at this exit, make a right turn. Two lines! It's not even DIFFICULT! What a doodyhead. (Yes, I wrote 'doodyhead'. I am very mature.)

Had a nice flight home (except the cold made my ears H-U-R-T at takeoff/landing), picked up the boys from Mom&Dad's, then I fell into bed and suffered for two days. Thus endeth my saga of The Trip To Vegas For Matt's Wedding.