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.

City of Angels and Bill Williams (08-19-15)

We’ve taken two trips in the last week.  The first one was up to Williams again, to escape the heat for the weekend. It’s so nice to sit outside and watch the wildlife, and maybe have a fire.  This particular campsite was near a prairie dog colony.

I also love that the temperatures are perfect- in the 50s at night-so we don’t need hook up to sleep comfortably.  That makes it easy to stay in the national forests, and pay nothing for our campsites.

One of our goals was to do some hiking.  Our first hike was along the Historic Overland Road.  It’s hard to believe that the Civil War reached all the way out here but Arizona was a route to California, and both sides wanted it.  Soon after the Union won it, gold was discovered in Prescott, and the Overland Road was built to access it.

Our second hike was more intimidating-the peak of Bill Williams Mountain, which turned out to be 9 miles round trip, and 2500 feet of elevation gain.  Although it is cooler than Havasu here, it was still in the 80s, making this a challenging day!

We finished off the trip with a stroll through downtown Williams.  They sure decorate their town different than most towns.  This is a gift shop/museum.  There are classic cars all throughout the town, which takes good advantage of its place on historic Route 66.




There are quite a few sets of these types of signs along Rte 66, and they are fun to read:

Our second trip of the week was to Los Angeles to act as moving van for our daughter.

It was a whirlwind two days of using the truck to move her and Kellan into their new apartment. I am glad she was able to retain her sense of humor with all the stress of moving. 

     
Having an F450 is both a blessing and a curse.  Its large size is helpful when you need to move something, but a detriment in a city like Los Angeles, where a 4 door car is considered large. The narrow driveway into the new apartment complex parking lot was nerve-wracking, and not quite wide enough for us.  Luckily the hedges were soft.  We only attempted it once.

Parking is a nightmare for a truck and in fact we had to park several blocks away, and shuttle her belongings to her apartment using her car.

Once the move was complete, the building of some new bureaus took up our time.

  Some helped more than others….

After a crazy two days, Paul and I booked it back to Havasu.  It’s really nice only being four and a half hours from Jess!

House Update

We actually have a front door now!  Well, at least part of a door.

The window won’t be placed until later.

The inside is now full of electrical outlets and plumbing.

And the Lathers are working on wrapping the house before putting on the stucco.

It is totally closed in now- no more walking through walls!  It’s also getting dark inside!  

The latest advancement is the placement of the roof tiles on the roof.  They will stay like this until the exterior stucco is finished, so that the stucco color won’t splatter onto the roof.  At least we’re getting watertight!

Hot Times in the City (10-8-14)

While I am not going to complain about the record high temperatures here in California, it does boggle my mind that it’s October and the temps in Los Angeles were consistently over 100 degrees. 








(By the way, my family and close friends are well aware that bad weather follows Paul and me. Someday when I am bored and have nothing to blog about, I’ll tell the story of how that knowledge came about).

It was worth  braving the brutal temperatures to see the smiling face of our daughter Jess!

Once we figured out a good time to go see our daughter, I did some research and learned that, not surprisingly, a decent hotel room in the Burbank area costs about $140 a night.  If we wanted to see her for more than a day, that would get pricy pretty quickly.  Luckily we own an “apartment” (terminology credited to our niece who wanted to know why we took the apartment, not the mansion to L.A.)

So, pretty much as soon as we got the camper unpacked, we packed it back up again for this short trip.  We stayed 3 nights at the Burbank Elks, a mere 2 miles from Jess’s house.  Total cost- $45. We used her car so the truck sat parked the whole time we were there.  It worked out very well!

The first order of business was to go for a hike.  In theory that was a great idea- we all like to hike- but we got delayed, and by the time we got on the trail, it was almost noon, and about 97 degrees outside. 

Great views notwithstanding, I cried uncle after a mere 40 minutes of hiking.  Although we were close to the coast, there was very little shade and the views weren’t that great!

Not being gluttons for punishment, we had made arrangements to spend the following day at Paul’s brother’s house, about an hour from L.A.  We haven’t seen Tom and Sue (yes, there are two Sue Porters) for quite a few months.  When they heard we were coming, they made it a party.

   Did I not mention that they have a pool? I told you we aren’t gluttons for punishment.

  Anyway, we had a great time visiting with family and friends.

Way too soon it was time to head back to Fresno, where numerous projects were waiting for our attention.