Alison, Maddy and I flew into San Diego in order to help shepherd Alison’s folks to Alison’s niece Ashley’s wedding. The wedding was in the Bay area, so that was not a trivial task; 10 hours of driving there, 10 hours of driving back. We took two cars between the five of us.
dinner at Shogun
The drive up ranged from stuck in stop and go
traffic in LA to zooming through the grapevine during a superbloom…
tedium and awe in equal combinations. But we made it in a
reasonable timeframe. We were all staying in a Marriot Residence
inn, which turned out to be a little problematic. The first
indication of trouble was arriving and finding the door to reception
closed and locked. We drove around to find… in the back of the
facility… a sign that said “We are remodeling, please check in here.”
Paul and Carol ended up in their room, no problem, but when Maddy opened
the door to our room, she closed it quickly and said, “There’s already
someone in this room.” Which turned out to be true. So we
went back to reception and they assigned us “the only room left,” which
turned out to be in a building with no working elevator. We were
actually carrying luggage that had been hauled from Maddy’s dorm in
Walla Walla, which weighted somewhere in the vicinity of “a lot,” so
hauling it between three buildings and up stairs was a minor logistical
miracle. Except the room was a smoking room and the fold out couch
had a moldy mattress. Back to the reception, where it turned out
they had accidentally given us the wrong room, 132 instead of 130.
After much huffing and puffying, we finally settled in for the night.
Alison had built in time in case Paul and
Carol couldn’t do the full 10 hours in one day and we had to spread the
trip out, but it wasn’t necessary. As a result, we were in
Danville a day early. That allowed us to hang out with Ashley and
Varick the day after we arrived, have lunch at the new Shanghaib
dumpling place, stop by an ice cream stand, and attend the reception
dinner in the evening. A very food-centric day.
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The next morning was wedding prep, particularly Maddy, who was a maid of honor, with a little help from a friend (Alicia).
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The wedding was at the Messiah Lutheran Church in Danville. Ashley was radiant and Varick was smiling. Maddy was wiggling her toes in her uncomfortable but stylish sandals (borrowed from Mom), but only Dave could see it since we were in the front row. The ceremony was traditional and short, followed by the slightly longer but required photos of every combination of relatives possible (let’s have uncles and nieces… now second cousins and grandparents…). Everyone else chatted in the church foyer, taking pictures of every combination of people possible (let’s have people with blue eyes and tattoos… now men in black loafers and yellow socks…)
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The reception was at the Bridges Restaurant in Danville, which was a nice place with homemade ice cream to die for. The reception was awesome, by which we mean “it had board games.” Noah did the traditional drop-barbeque-sauce-on-your-shirt move during our game of “Tichu.” His dad would have been proud. The wedding cake was topped with a lego bride and groom, which was an inside joke that we doubt many people got but was fun none the less. The cocktails were excellent, and Alison’s dad had two martinis, then several Prosecco's that were on the table, and was feeling really, really good at the end of the reception.
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We all gathered afterwards at, of course, another bar (the nearby Marriot).
The drive back was uneventful. We parted ways with Maddy, who remained in the LA house to prepare for her job at City Of Hope Hospital. We had the same assumed-extra-day on the way back, so we had a full day in San Marcos and decided to go to the San Diego Zoo for the day.
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