Vacation up to bachelor party
So the first part of the vacation leading up to the wedding was a blast. Kent and Rayetta arrived shortly after 2 pm on Sunday, and we went to work moving stuff up to the apartment. They donated, among other things, a shredder, a shelf, and a console TV to us. One man's trash is another's treasure. That TV... yikes, it must weigh a hundred pounds, and getting it up the stairs to the apartment was not an easy task. I was sore from it until mid-week.
We were on the road by 3 pm and at Sutherlin by 5. After our usual stop there (why no pictures this time?) we got right back on the road and got to the hotel around 7 o clock. There was a family of four checking in right as we arrived. They had some confusion about name spelling which resulted in the father getting the kids packed back into the car just in time for the desk clerk to figure everything out, at which time he got to re-un-pack the kids. Fortunately, they were all good-spirited about the mixup. More fortunately, there was no such mixup for us. Our room was 311, a very short walk from the elevator. Two notes about the hotel: they were under construction - which turned out to be a non-issue, and they had homemade cookies available Sunday night which were delicious.
Anyhow, we spent the evening unpacking and generally trying to relax. We got up Monday morning just before 2 am. We needed to go to the airport to pick up Amanda's extended family, whose ETA was just before 2. After a little difficulty finding parking (as with the hotel, the airport was under construction) we arrived. The airport was dead, as you may expect considering the hour. Anyhow, Amanda's family arrived shortly after 2. We chatted while waiting for luggage but the conversation was minimal, all of us were tired - and they all had a three hour jet lag to recover from.
Monday started early-ish. I woke at 8 am almost well rested. I joined Amanda's family in the lobby for a surprisingly good continental breakfast. It was about that point that I started to get to know people and in the interest of brevity I'll just say that I really got to like them over the course of the week. Great humor all around and good fun to be around. How fortunate.
The plan for Monday was to go to the Redwoods with Amanda's family and try to relax for the day. The day started off well enough. We hit the road earlier than we expected - something like 10 am compared to noon. By noon, we were getting weary so we decided to stop at a rest stop in California just south of the border. Beautiful rest stop for a beautiful day. I took the picture of the bird below. I'm pretty proud of it since my shots are usually pretty terrible. I just wish that branch wasn't in the way.
Anyhow. Long story short, we started getting tired of the driving. Road signs indicated that Eureka (where the Redwoods proper are supposed to be) was another 100 or so miles away, and none of us really wanted to go that much further only to turn back around. So we decided that the right thing to do would be to change this from a Redwoods trip to a coast trip with some stops for tree views along the way. After all, the trees that we were passing were huge so even if we weren't getting the full Redwoods we'd still have fun anyway.
So we went to Crescent City, CA and parked at the first sign of beach. It was the perfect day for a beach trip, if a little cool by the water. We even had the pleasure to feed a family of chipmunks... very friendly chipmunks. This little guy here loved chips. I still can't believe how close they got to us.
On the way back to Medford, we did stop several times to look at trees. Amanda's cousin Josh climbed one of the stumps. Amanda climbed one, although I overlooked uploading it. Maybe later? EDIT: I did it! Yay my team! :)
During our longest tree-looking-outing (in a state park where the attendant didn't make us pay to park) we went to a river. Below you can see the river, Josh and his dad Todd skipping rocks, and his brother Robby.
We made one more stop before Oregon at a podunk convenience shop, where Amanda and I each bought the worst egg salad sandwiches ever. I mean.. the worst. They were bad.
Upon arriving in Medford, we joined Kent and Rayetta at Applebees. Robby surprised their grandma by telling the waitress that it was her birthday (over the weekend...) and the waitresses did the whole song/ice cream thing. Surprised us all, really.
After the dinner, we were all quite exhausted. We met back up in the hotel lobby where we spent a half hour or so shooting the breeze and playing "throw the ball into the bowl".
Tuesday was not nearly as eventful as Monday. Met with my parents in the morning for brunch, checked out of the hotel (why we unpacked so thoroughly on Sunday remains a mystery), shopped at Pier One and Michael's, had lunch at Olive Garden, Amanda discovered that one of her diamonds in her engagement ring fell out... her cousin Josh was great about the way he told everyone so discretely... went to FM jewelers where they thankfully were able to fix the situation in under six hours, bought me clothes at Kohl's, picked up two ice cream cones (in 90+ degrees is it any reason that they melted all over me that quick? It was painful!)... had our rehearsal at the wedding site. From there Andrew, Corey and I went to FM where we met Chris for the bachelor party.
That was a blast! We went to the Seven Feathers casino in Canyonville (about 70 miles from Medford). People donated $100 to me for gambling, which was great! We got to the casino safely enough, but Andrew was so excited to get to the parking spot that he drove onto and over the sidewalk to get there. Yep, we used the sidewalk! Hahaha. Gambling was fun but I lost every penny. Perhaps more fun was the drinking part. All three of them bought me drinks. I had a Jager bomb, a glass of Jack, and a long island iced tea. I think that was all? I felt pretty good but didn't realize how drunk I was until I stood up... lol :)
So that was the vacation leading up to the day of the wedding. Depending on the photo upload I may post the wedding day still tonight or maybe tomorrow. We'll see :0