The Adventures of T&A

Ken and Laura’s wedding- The wedding isn’t until 7pm, but we’re there early for photos.  I’m glad to find out they’ve moved the wedding indoors.  The parents and grandparents wouldn’t lasted long outside.  While I was not in the photos, I took some things over to Ken’s house.  They’ve been remodeling and the place looks great.  While I was there, I got to take Captain Nemo for a brief walk.  Captain Nemo is Laura’s Golden Retriever, about 11 years old.  You’d never know it!  He’s as spry as a puppy.  He was happy to see me for a walk and really happy when I brought out his food.  

The bride was beautiful, the groom was dashing.  The hall was decorated with the most lovely flowers.  Naylor Hall is a historic building that acts as a location for weddings and other festive events.  The non-denominational priest that officiated was great, lending a sense of humor to lighten things up.  The wedding was perfect.  The newly-weds are now on some island in the Caribbean, resting.  

Wedding rehearsal dinner- As Best Man, Andrew has to be there for the rehearsal.  As a spouse, I’m just there, trying to stay out of the way.  This is when I find out that they are planning to have the wedding outside.  It’s cold, maybe 40 degrees with high humidity, so it feels much colder.  I’m going to have to borrow a coat from my mother-in-law because the only coat I have with me is the one I take backpacking!  Not really appropriate for a wedding.  The dinner is at Dreamland BBQ.  They’ve expanded since I was there last in Birmingham.  At that point they only served ribs and white bread.  They now have side dishes and desserts. The food was great.

Andrew is the Best Man for the wedding of our friends Ken andLaura.  We had to pick up his tux this afternoon.  Andrew has been onthe phone with Ken and several of the guys going ot the Bachelor party and itseems Ken is not feeling well.  He’s had a cold and went to see a doctor toget something for it.  Andrew’s last words to me before he left for theBachelor party was, "Ken’s not feeling well, I’ll probably be home kind ofearly".  Famous last words.  I awoke at 1:30am and Andrew had notcome home yet.  I was worried.  I called the cell phone and Ifinally got him to answer.  "I’m fine, Honey, just go back tosleep".  Like that’s going to happen now!  He finally came homeabout 3am, but I couldn’t get back to sleep until maybe 5am.  

We had an appointment to get our haircut by Roger at SalonBrookwood. Roger was our regular stylist while we were in Atlanta and we missed him on theroad.

We poked thru the attic where all our stuff is stored this morning. Where did all this come from?  On one hand, it’ll be a bit like Christmas,opening all the stuff we forgot about.  On the other hand, we have to becareful not to take out too much stuff and not have a place to store it inColorado.  We don’t have a house yet!  We left Birmingham and drove to Atlanta after lunch with Anita andPhil.  We made it to Atlanta in time for dinner with Jack andEllen.  

We left Tulsa and headed east.  We made it to Memphis, TN arounddinnertime.  I called my friend Anita in Birmingham and asked about anygood barbeque in Memphis.  "Corky’s" she said, " Best ribsin Memphis".  It seems a relative lived there and did theresearch.  And so we checked it out in our mapping software and took aninterstate exit that put us into an area of town with Bail Bondsmen andconvenience stores with bars on the windows.  I didn’t like the feel ofthis and we didn’t see Corky’s.  We called the number that was listed andthey gave us a new address over the phone.  We found Corky’s in aneighborhood with Country Clubs just a few miles up the road.  The placewas packed but they still had a few tables opened.  We were seated rightaway.  Without doing the research of trying ALL the BBQ in Memphis, we’dhave to agree that this was some of the best ribs in Memphis.  Man, thisstuff was GOOD!!  

We drove down CorridorX, US 78, the future route of I-22, from Memphis to Birmingham, AL.  Wemade it to Phil and Anita’s around 10:30 Central time.  Time travel is sotough.  

We awoke this morning to 6 to 8 inches of fresh snow.  There was no snowlast night at all when we came arrived.  We finished our packing and waitedfor the snow plows to clear the roads.  We wanted to get an earlier startthan this, but we aren’t sure if we want to drive down the steep mountain roadswith this much snow.  We took a chance and started out, only to pass thesnow plow on his way in.  the steepest road we had to travel was alreadyplowed.  

We drove over Vail Pass and Loveland Pass in the snow, but the roads wereclear.  The worst part was the salt and chemicals being kicked up onto ourwindshield.   By the time we reached Denver, the snow hadstopped.  Later on, we ran into a misty rain and drove thru grey skies allday.  As we crossed Kansas we had a strong wind from the north that hadtumbleweeds dancing across the road and thru the endless flat fields.  Theweather cleared up as we headed south into Tulsa, OK.  We stopped at ahotel in Sand Springs, just west of Tulsa.  The Budget Inn used to be aDays Inn and was still listed as such in our GPS mapping program.  The roomwas cheap and was quite large with a microwave, fridge and, believe it or not, awhirlpool tub!  We didn’t get a chance ot enjoy the jet tub, but we foundout they accept pets.  We may stop back by here on our return trip toColorado.  I wonder what Simon would think of a jet tub?

Andrew and I have to get busy today.  We have lots to do before we headout back east for the holidays.  We took some things to our shed and pickedup our backpacking gear.  We had to pack and clean out our refrigerator adfreezer and prepare the trailer to be gone for two months.  Mark came byand helped us winterize the trailer’s water lines.  Chris and Cheriestopped by and helped us clean out the freezer by eating the rest of the icecream.  It’s a tough job, but they made the sacrifice!  Andrew and Ileft shortly after lunch and headed to Edwards. We are picking up our suitcasesthere and dropping off some stuff we don’t want left in the trailer tofreeze.  We’ve heard that December temperatures can reach well belowzero.  We made it to Edwards and Villa Koransky in time to do some laundryand rest.  

Chris, Cherie, Andrew and I went into Salida for dinner and some livemusic.  We went to the top of "S" mountain.  They have athing out west where they put the initial of the town or the logo of the localschool in the side of a nearby mountain.  "S" mountain (probablynot it’s real name) is accessed by Spiral Drive, a road that, you guessed it,spirals to the top of the mountain.  They had "ChristmasMountain" strung with lights.  We’ve heard that they turn the wholemountain into a giant Christmas tree with ornaments in lights and a star ontop.  We wandered around town and Chris loved the BungledJungle shop, but it was closed when we got there.  After dinner at Amica’sPizza we went over to Bongo Billy’sto catch some music by Jill Cohn. It was 16 degrees when we got back to our trailer at Big Horn Park and evencolder up at Chris’ trailer on our property.  Brrr….