Saturday started out with a riot of wind and rain. And thunder. Ramsey was not pleased. Libby is relaxed all the time.
It turned into a nice day, though, topped off by our watching The Godfather via Netflix. I hadn't seen the movie since its opening in 1972, but it was so memorable that I recalled a lot more of it than I expected.
We had pasta for dinner, and hit the sack early. Sunday came bright and dry. We did a little back yard maintenance. The redbox movie was Eye In The Sky, with Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman. A pretty good drone strike thriller.
Monday was the 4th, of course, We watched the morning parade down Route 66. It's always fun.
That afternoon we barbecued brats for dinner.
Tuesday involved a visit with Dr. Mathern, which went well. My anemia has slackened quite a bit; I'm feeling much better.
Wednesday morning I had my regular massage from Natanya,
followed by an appointment with Dr. Boettcher. The treatment to fill the tiny hole in my scalp seems to be progressing nicely. The Netflix movie was Secretariat, a feel good Disney film starring Diane Lane. The dialog was a bit corny but the racing scenes were very exciting.
Early Thursday morning we dropped the dogs off at the Cinder Hills Kennels then picked up my rented suit at the I Do I Do store, and returned home to finish packing. We then left on our 896-mile round trip to Long Beach to attend the wedding of Alan and Chris Buckelew's daughter Erin to John Farnsworth at the Queen Mary in Long Beach. The Thursday night stop was at the Rodeway Inn in Barstow. It had the noisiest air conditioner I've ever heard. Otherwise it was fine. We had tasty Mexican food for dinner at Jenny's Grill, the restaurant next door.
We were in no hurry Friday to start on the leg to the Queen Mary since check-in was supposed to be after 4:00. We had all-you-can-eat sushi for lunch at the Octopus Restaurant in downtown Long Beach.
We arrived at the ship early but were checked in anyway. We learned that we had inadvertently booked an inside cabin, which we quickly upgraded to a very nice dockside room.
The rehearsal dinner was at 7:00, and was very nice. I spent quite some time talking with one of Alan's buddies from his Viet Nam days.
Saturday morning we met Joyce Levinson and David Kriesel at the ship for breakfast in the Chowder House Restaurant. Joyce and David are long-time friends; Joyce worked with Becky at Union Bank. It was fun seeing them for the first time in 7 years.
In the early afternoon, Becky took the obligatory photo of me waving from our porthole.
The late-afternoon wedding was beautiful, naturally. The reception was in the Grand Salon, attended by several hundred people.
At the pre-dinner cocktail party we started talking with what appeared to be a young-ish couple (Amber and Jim). It turned out that Jim was 63 and Amber was 35, and Jim had been only a year behind Becky at San Marino High School. They spent the next hour playing Whom-Do-You Remember?
while Amber and I talked about law school. She's an LLM candidate at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, having obtained her JD degree in her native Ohio.
Sunday morning was a group buffet breakfast on the ship, our chance to say goodbye to everyone who had stayed over.
We then headed for Needles. On the way we stopped for coffee at the Starbucks in Barstow, and spent a half-hour at the most crowded Starbucks I had ever seen. The only excitement getting to Needles was a slight delay due to an overturned FedEx truck that required three cranes to get it out of the median ditch. We arrived in 113 degree heat at the Quality Inn in Needles.
Becky got our dinner at the McDonald's next door. I had yummy Chicken McNuggets and fries. This place had a very quiet air conditioner and a super comfortable bed, and we slept beautifully.
We got an early start on Monday, since we had to pick up the dogs before 1:00. We first stopped at home to drop off our luggage, then in Flagstaff to drop off the suit I rented, then on to the kennel to pick up Ramsey, Kelsey and Libby, all of whom were very happy to see us.
After we rested a while, we returned to the usual routine. We watched more of The Americans that evening. That ended our busy week and a half.
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