The Wedding (3/10/25)

 Usually when we head to L.A. (which we wouldn’t do at if we didn’t love our daughter so much lol) we take an RV so we have our own home with us. This time our daughter assured us that no place we could stay would be close enough to the festivities and she recommended a hotel or Airbnb.

We chose an Airbnb near her because we are meeting Justin’s family for the first time and wanted space to be able to have everyone over for dinner.

We actually met them all the night before our dinner at Jess and Justin’s for an impromptu dinner of pizza and beer.

Justin is from Louisiana so his family flew in for the event.

For the dinner at our place we ordered in from a couple of restaurants, keeping life simple.

Since there will be no traditional cake cutting at the wedding, Jess and Justin did it with the cake his parents brought.

The day of the wedding dawned clear but very windy. Very Windy.

I have told people how proud I am of Jess, with the way she rolled with the punches so to speak. Her original plan was to get married in the chapel area at the courthouse and do a champagne toast next door at the Beverly Hills Hotel. But the court wasn’t doing weddings the day she wanted to get married, March 7th,  so two weeks before the wedding, she had no venue and no officiant.

Luckily her good friend Cassie stepped up and offered the use of her apartment building’s rooftop sitting area, and Justin’s father got ordained as a minister for the occasion. It’s a very small wedding, 14 people.

Cassie and Jess put in a lot of work setting up a runner, decorated with vases of flowers, etc.

Before the ceremony some of us were in Cassie’s apartment getting ready when Cassie got a phone call.

Apparently the wind was so strong it was blowing over the vases and breaking them. And it was so cold, the guests were huddled in the little sitting area inside.

Jess was offered the choice of getting married outside where the wind would ruin everything within seconds, or in the alcove by the elevator where there was no wind.

She very smartly chose the alcove. No more aisle to walk down, but the 10 steps she did take were taken with a smile on her face.

After the ceremony there was some food, champagne, and some dancing while pictures were being taken.

After an hour or so we all left for the restaurant, Catch LA where we had a private room and some of the best food we have had in a long time.

From there we headed to the rooftop bar of one of their favorite bars where we were joined by a bunch of the bride and grooms friends.

There was live music and lots of dancing and we had such a great time that Paul and I stayed until after 1 am.

After decompressing the following day, we headed back home.

The Last of Summer 2024 (10/30/24)

 Our final area for exploring this summer is Nevada City, California, a historic mining town. Paul has wanted to visit here, so it was a good chance to knock it off our bucket list.

We spent one day visiting Empire Mine State Historic Park. The Empire mine was one of the richest gold mines in California, and was in operation for over 100 years, shutting down in 1956. In 1975 the mine property was bought by the state of California, and turned into a state park.

During it’s heyday, a special room was constructed, called the “Secret Room”.  Appropriately, not many people knew about the room while the mine was in operation. In it was a 3D model of the underground workings of the mine, which covered more than 5 square miles.

 

It’s very difficult to get a picture that captures the intricacies of the model, but it was very interesting to learn that visitors who tour the mine nowadays only descend one inch down on the model, and each inch represents 80 ft. Everything below the 2 inch mark is under water now.

This area favored hydraulic mining, where a high pressure cannon essentially spewed water at huge banks of gravel, breaking it apart so the gold could be more easily separated from the rock. Unfortunately this created a huge debris field that traveled downstream, clogging rivers and streams and changing the path of the water. Farms suffered to the point that lawsuits were filed, and essentially a cease and desist order was given by the courts, mostly ending hydraulic mining.

The other park we explored while in the area was Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park. Like many mining towns, during the gold rush, there were many buildings here, including 8 saloons, two churches, a school, and daily stage coach service. Like the Empire mine, the debris created by mining in this area caused the shut down of hydraulic mining.

Once we left Nevada City, we worked our way south through California, stopping several times along the way. One of the stops was Sacramento, where we attended Paul’s 50th high school reunion, and met up with his friend Robin and his partner Kim, and had a great time celebrating.

Robin and Paul were Eagle Scouts together back when they were teens. (More on Kim and Robin in a future post).

Leaving Sacramento we headed through the Fresno area, meeting up with Paul’s fraternity brothers, as usual.

Our final stop for visiting was Los Angeles, where we spent a day or so with our daughter before moving on. She is getting married in March of 2025 so, I have been shopping for “outfits” all along the western coast.

Once we got back to Lake Havasu, we had very little time to relax before preparing for our next adventure.

Closing out 2023 (01-20-24)

 The months of October, November and December flew by in a blur.  We had to make several trips back and forth from Arizona to El Paso, as Paul’s mom was declining rapidly.

On the way to and from we broke up the long drive by stopping to do some hiking and visit friends.

Our friends Tom and Dianne live about halfway, so we usually stopped to visit with them. On one visit we explored Ramsey Canyon Preserve, where we spent an enjoyable few hours hiking and watching the hummingbirds.

On one of our visits we got out the black light and went hunting for scorpions- and even found a couple! For those who don’t know, scorpions light up at night under a black light.

Thanksgiving was also spent at Tom and Dianne’s, on our way to El Paso.

After a few days with his mom after Thanksgiving , we backtracked and headed to Los Angeles to see our daughter Jess. We had booked a spot at a county park on the beach, one of my favorite places to stay.

I miss living near the ocean, and as soon as we arrived I went for a walk- as my daughter, the stalker, figured out haha.

Originally our trip was planned because Jess bought tickets for her and I to see a live show of Mamma Mia at the historic Pantages Theater. The show was awesome!

As it turned out, it happened to coincide with Jess and Justin’s move into their new apartment. They had hired movers, but it was still great that we were able to be there and help them organize and get settled in.

Once we left Los Angeles, we took a deep breath, enjoying the ambiance of Lake Havasu. It wasn’t long though, before we felt we needed to be in El Paso.

We knew this was likely to be our last trip, and we were not wrong.  On December 16, about a week after we arrived in El Paso, Gerry Porter, Paul’s mom,  passed away.

She had an incredible 93 year run, and just months before her passing, was enjoying life, and playing bingo-her favorite thing to do . We were very glad we were able to be there for her.

Taking care of everything that needed to be done didn’t take as long as we thought it might, and we made it home just in time for Christmas. It’s always nice to see London Bridge all decked out.

 Our friends Brad and Marilyn were there ahead of us, and Liz and Randy arrived before New Years. It was a quiet year, but we still had fun!

Before Summer 2023 (06-26-23)

 After returning from Mexico, we didn’t let any moss grow under our feet.  We headed home for a brief few days before heading to our next destination- Southern California.  We originally planned this part of our trip in order to meet up with Paul’s brother Tom and his wife Sue- we call her Sue1, and I am Sue2 because we are both Sue Porter, but she was in the family first.

Anyway the plan was to meet up with them and head to the Zydeco Festival in early-mid May. It also was Tom’s 70th birthday so we planned to arrive early to celebrate that. Then Paul and I found out that Jimmy Buffett was playing in San Diego the first weekend of May, so we added that into the mix.

So, plans were made.

We arrived in Chula Vista CA on the 5th of May- the Buffett concert was on the 6th.  We loaded up the truck with everything we had that screamed “It’s 5 O'clock Somewhere” and drove out to the stadium. This is a brand new stadium and Buffett is the first concert to be performed there. We had never tailgated before but we were quick learners. We set our food and drink up in the bed of our truck and of course, posted on Facebook. 

Then we took off to wander around drinking a margarita while observing the crazy antics of our fellow parrot heads.

Unbeknownst to us, after Paul posted on Facebook, some friends saw the post, and they were a 2 minute walk from us. So as we were walking around enjoying the ambiance, they were at our truck looking for us. Too funny. We did catch up to them and chatted for a while before heading in to the concert.

The weather was perfect for an outdoor concert. Jason Mraz opened, followed by a set by Mac McAnally who was joined later by Jimmy Buffett. I am not much of a concert goer but we definitely enjoyed it and yes, the tailgating was really fun and crazy- but it didn’t speak to me like the Eagles Concert did.

 I think the only performer I am interested in seeing perform live now, is Garth Brooks, if I get the chance.

Ok, so, concert over, we moved from Chula Vista, CA up to Oceanside, a couple of days before Tom’s birthday.  Our first day there, the guys were looking for a project to work on together, so they headed off to Sue’s son Shad’s house. Years ago we spent a few days working on projects here, and this was another smaller project.

 UNFORTUNATELY, while the guys were outside looking at water sprinklers etc. I was inside the house and managed to take one BAD step. I knew immediately that something was wrong, and called Paul on his phone. Fast forward to Urgent Care, and I have two broken bones in my foot, with doctors orders not to put any weight on it until I see a surgeon.

Peachy. Our daughter Jess had already made plans to come and stay with us for a couple of days while we were in southern California. Luckily we were still able to enjoy our time with her, and spent a wonderful two hours sitting outside a restaurant on the water, enjoying the smell of ocean air.

The three of us went to Tom’s house for his birthday and had a great time celebrating the fact that he is getting old, haha.

The Zydeco Music Festival (Gatorbythebay) was out for me, so Paul and I called it a day and headed home instead. We found an orthopedic surgeon in Kingman, about an our from our home in Havasu, and headed there to get X-rays, CT scans, and the news that unless the piece of bone sticking up from my foot causes me a problem later, I should be ok. However, I still had to do two weeks of no weight bearing, followed by incremental weightbearing, as tolerated.

Although I consider myself a crutches Pro, apparently that was many years ago because crutches are not fun. It took one day for me to order a knee scooter, so I could zip around the house to my hearts content. Weirdly, I received two scooters from Amazon, although I only ordered one. They kindly told me to donate the extra, which I did, when someone local on Facebook put out a call for a knee scooter because she broke her foot.

My birthday weekend was spent at the house with my cousin Linda and her husband Michael. Although quieter than usual, the 4 of us still had a great time, hanging by the pool and playing games.

I love my daughter’s sense of humor. She made this card for me for Mother’s Day: And yes, I opened it again on my birthday, lol. 

Next up on the agenda was Memorial Day weekend. This is always a fast paced crazy drunken weekend. We called all the participants to let them know that I might be a bit of a Debby downer, but they all decided to come anyway.

The good news is that my foot was never put in a cast, so I could lounge in the pool as much as I wanted. I already own a walking boot, so that made life much more tolerable. I wasn’t up for going on the boat, but I heard they all had a great time.

Memorial Day over, life settled down, for a few days.

We had made some plans for June that were now impossible to do. I was supposed to fly to MA on my own, to spend time with my family, and our son Stephen, but of course, now I can’t drive, so I canceled my flights etc. Very disappointing. Paul had planned to go to Fresno CA during that time frame, to help our friend Kirk build a deck. Since Kirk had bought all the wood, Paul still went, but for a shorter time, leaving me home alone for a few days.

It was around this time that all kinds of things started going wrong, actually. 

The dryer broke.          

          
            

The front landing gear in the Mobile Suite let go, tilting the front down “on its knees” as we say. Unfortunately the fridge was running, which caused the cooling system to fail (due to being off level too far) and we had to order a new cooling unit. It took two tries to get one here and in fact we only got the fridge fixed 3 days before we were scheduled to leave for the summer.

Paul bought new tires for the Mobile Suite, since they were close to aging out and we are taking the trailer for the summer. 

 While the tires were off he noticed that the leaf springs were in bad shape, and the Trailair center point suspension was not working, or had frozen, or was cracked, (actually, the bushings were worn out) or something.  I can’t keep up with all the lingo. 

Anyway, many thousands of dollars later, the trailer is back into ship shape condition. Whew.  I am extremely grateful that my husband is so mechanically inclined!

In the meantime, Paul got up one morning and broke his glasses.  On the same day, one of his hear aids stopped working.  Luckily we were able to get appointments at Costco for both, the next day, so off we went. That turned out to be the first of many trips to Las Vegas over the next few weeks.  I needed to go there for a CT scan of my foot (all clear), Paul’s glasses required several trips because the first pair arrived scratched, and the eye dr. at Costco wanted him to see a specialist to check on his cataracts, so we went back again for that. Turns out he does need cataract surgery, but we will wait till fall for that.

Soon after Paul arrived back from California, our daughter Jess arrived with some of her friends. Brooke and Matt have heard about the PPP (Porter Party Place) but have never been here.

They arrived with my favorite 2 year old, Noah. Noah is the first toddler we have had in the house, which took some extra thinking and precautions.

We thoroughly enjoyed their company and Noah found plenty to do. He did great swimming in the pool, and his favorite saying seemed to be “beep beep car”.  Beeping the horn on my Mustang was definitely one of his favorite pastimes. 

He reminded me a lot of my son at a similar age, “driving” my brother’s Firebird.

Once they left it was yet another run to Las Vegas, and then serious packing so we could leave town on June 21.

Because we are taking the trailer, we decided to book campgrounds in advance. We have the entire month of July booked at various campgrounds in Colorado, but we will stop first in El Paso to check in on Paul’s mom.