California Trip 2003
Posted by marshall Fri, 20 Jun 2003 18:00:00 GMT
Well, we're back from this year's trip to California and have gotten somewhat settled in again. We should be posting some pictures soon; we took over 400 and have been sorting through them to figure out which would be the best to post in our limited web space.
Warning: This is a long entry...
We flew out nonstop from Pittsburgh to San Francisco on Wednesday, June 4th. We rented a Sebring convertible from Hertz, which we got a pretty good deal on and which was a pleasure to drive over the next week. Once we checked into the fine Embassy Suites north of the airport (which we got through HotWire along with the rest of our hotels, thanks to a much-appreciated recommendation from Mom), we set out looking for a Carl's Jr. to get some fabulous Western Bacon Cheeseburgers and seasoned waffle fries. It took 2 hours of asking for directions and finding they were wrong before we stumbled across one, but that just made it tastier. For the rest of the day, we drove south through Silicon Valley, through the quiet forests of Saratoga, and back up along Highway 1 to the Taco Bell on the beach in Pacifica.
On Thursday we met our friend Esperanza in Berkeley and took the BART to downtown San Francisco. We spent a good deal of time at the fascinating Exploratorium, then went to Pier 39 to meet Esperanza's friend Sasha for dinner and a delicious strawberry-chocolate crepe dessert.
We drove north-east to Sacramento on Friday and met up with Mom, Dad, Adam, Ingrid, Andy, and Aunt Mary. Adam and I went to meet his friends at the airport, pick up our tuxes, and enjoy some fantastic burritos at Chipotle while "the girls" got together for lunch. We met back up for the wedding rehearsal that evening at the Sloughhouse Inn, and then headed to the Sheepherder's Inn for the rehearsal dinner. Afterwards, Dad got the guys together for the "Conferral of Manhood" on Adam.
On Saturday, Adam and Britany were married in a beautiful outdoor wedding. Like most weddings, it had its unexpected quirks. It was late getting started for a variety of reasons, and the PA system kept cutting in and out. The two most memorable moments, though, were the lighting of the unity candle and the cutting of the cake. As Adam and Britany were about to go up to light the unity candle together, the pastor realized the two individual candles had blown out and rushed up to light them. Try as he may, however, those candles refused to light. After several attempts, he simply shrugged and said, "Pretend." Adam and Britany pseudo-solemnly took the candles, "lit" the unity candle, and "blew out" the individual ones. It was hilarious to watch, and it gloriously exemplified their flexible, amiable personalities. The same was true of the cutting of the cake: when the time came, it seems there was no knife to be found, so they picked up a pair of plastic salad tongs, tore into the cake, and fed each other with the tongs. Everyone loved it. These things made the wedding "theirs", and made it memorable in all the best ways.
Lara and I had a late meal at Chipotle late that evening, and on Sunday morning we returned my tux and took the magnificently scenic drive along Highway 50 to Lake Tahoe. We checked into the South Lake Tahoe Embassy Suites and met up with Mom, Dad, Ingrid, Andy, and Aunt Mary. That evening we went to the Pacifica buffet at Harvey's, just over the Nevada state line. It's a very expensive buffet, but it's huge and had great food.
We spent Monday driving the highways that encircle the lake. We drove around Lake Tahoe on our visit last year, but no memory or photograph can capture the breathtaking beauty of that landscape. There are blues and greens there that just look too vibrant to be real. We took in the Emerald Bay vista point, ate at the Sunnyside restaurant on the lake, walked on the Sand Harbor beach, and then returned to the hotel and walked around a bit there. We got to bed early, since the next day we had to be up at 4:00 AM for the hot air balloon ride we had scheduled.
We woke up on time on Tuesday morning, called the hot air balloon company to make sure we were still going, and were told that a wind had come up that made it too turbulent to safely take the balloon up. By then we were already up and getting ready to go, so we decided to drive around the lake and watch the sunrise. We found a great spot overlooking Emerald Bay, and it was just stunning.
After taking a bunch of pictures (a couple of which I'm using as the desktop pictures on my PowerBook), we drove back to San Francisco to meet up with Dad, Ingrid, Andy, and Aunt Mary. We took in the Wax Museum, Ripley's Believe It Or Not!, the cable cars, the sea lions, the "bush man" that hides behind some branches he's holding and leaps out at unsuspecting tourists...all in all, a great time.
On Wednesday we reluctantly returned the convertible to Hertz, got our boarding passes, had an outstanding meal at the Allegro restaurant at the airport, and took a nonstop flight back to Pittsburgh. We managed to switch to emergency exit row seats this time, which were MUCH more comfortable than the cramped seats we had on the previous flight. We touched down in Pittsburgh around 10pm, got out of the airport at around 11:30pm, had a bite to eat at Steak'n'Shake, and got to bed around 1am.
And at 5:30am the next morning, we got up to go to work.
