We were lost, overheated, and late to my grandson’s wedding

We’ve just returned from our grandchild’s wedding. Because of COVID, I went to this wedding feeling just as I did when I was a bride myself.

On my own wedding day I did my own makeup, polished my own nails, and did my own hair. You can tell how long ago that was. In today's culture that would be viewed as Cinderella-worthy cruelty.

I’m always wary of travelling on the day of a simcha, yet we decided to drive the three hours on the day of the wedding because “someone” prefers to sleep in his own bed. There had been much talk about the possibility of driving there with a child or grandchild, but after discussion with the doctor, who was more comfortable with our driving our own car by ourselves, we decided to sleep over in a hotel as opposed to driving back the night of the wedding.

That morning I carefully applied all the requisite extra-duty makeup, creams, lashes, and lotions. (I now have a deeper appreciation of the magic that happens in front of the mirrors of these talented make-up artists.) I reconfirmed our hotel reservation, grabbed water and snacks, punched the address into Waze, and off we went.

Speeding along on a highway going almost 70 mph in 96-degree heat and Baltimore humidity is not the time to find out that the air-conditioning in the car is not working. By this point, we were too far into the trip to turn around. And just about then, the car started pinging and the locks started going up and down, up and down, up and down. Oh, and the gas gauge was at about a quarter of a tank full...

Let's put it this way: One of us was in charge of the travel arrangements — hotel, food and snacks — and one of us was in charge of making sure the car was filled with gas and road-travel ready. Suffice it to say that the frost in the air had nothing to do with what was blowing from the fan vents.

Waze started taking us into slightly unfamiliar territory but we were going in the right direction, so we weren’t too concerned. Around the time when we should have arrived at our destination, I asked hubby to pull over — it gave us a reason to speak to each other — so I could reprogram the travel directions. Just to be safe, I called the hotel to confirm the address.

Did you know there are two roads named Route 70? I reprogrammed the address to Highway 70. We arrived at the hotel only an hour and a half after we were supposed to. Did I mention the rising temperature in the car, the musical accompaniment of the pinging, and the dancing car locks?

At this point we were both dripping wet — and it wasn't raining.