The adventure was more than just a wedding however! First, we had to get there! The brides asked Z and I if we could transport the officiant, JT to the ceremony on Orcas Island. Our little red wagon is the best, and I'm crazy about her...let me say that right away. Her CV joint is on it's way out however, and she's not the comfiest ride in town for an older person (the officiant) who might be stiff after hours in our back seat and Z is far too tall to hang in the back. Yet again, I am blessed with fantastic friends, and we borrowed our pal's VW van. This way we could ride AND sleep in comfort without having to pay for a room! Now, there's no sense in all those captain chairs going to waste... within days before the weekend, we had a merry band... Zak and I would pick up Julie, John and JT and head north. It was awesome...
except that I couldn't quite get the blinkers to work. They worked when I picked up the van on Friday night, but come Saturday morning, no go. I spent all the time I'd put aside for a hair cut buying fuses and replacing one, but still I hand signaled my way all the way up to Orcas.
First I picked up Julie (and a couple of "back up dresses" for each of us) and headed back for Z. Then we picked up John at Mighty O, along with some donuts and coffees, and then finally we were in front of JT's door, handing her a latte and apologizing for being almost 40 minutes late. (The blinker fiasco and a top secret wardrobe emergency were to blame.)
On the phone Friday night, JT had said "I'm not an anxious person." She proved this. Back home, I only took ferries to little tiny islands, ferries that left every 20 minutes or so. Here, in the Pacific Northwest, I've arrived for a ferry two hours early, and STILL missed it and had to wait still more hours for the next one. There are no ferry reservations, only ferry victors and ferry victims. Granted, ferry tragedies generally occur on busy, sunny, summer weekends, and not in March. All the same, I burned rubber all the 85 miles up the highway, no bathroom stops.
I got to know JT a little bit because she sat up front with me. She's a professor who teaches writing and poetry, and she was the academic advisor to Molly, one of the brides. We had a nice chat that occasionally overlapped and mingled with the hilarity that was happening in the back. Luckily, I'd happened to have heard all the stories that Z and Johnny told, so I didn't miss out on too much.
I'm a pretty good driver, and Z taught me how to drive. He is a very safe driver, and is anxious whenever he's in the passenger seat. I owe John and Julie something really great because they kept at least part of his brain occupied enough so that I didn't hear him gasp or holler when he was overwhelmed at the dangers of highway driving.
As we were approaching the ferry, I heard John say "He died when his bladder exploded. Most people figure it was mercury poisoning though." It was at this moment that I realized that we hadn't made one stop for the whole trip. We pulled in at 1:12. The ferry was set to leave at 1:15. The woman in the booth told us we would make it on. We celebrated. I parked. If we'd had to wait for the next ferry, we'd have gotten dressed on the boat and just barely gotten there with JT just before the whole shebang was due to start.
Here's Jules mending her gorgeous black dress on the ferry. We got to hang out with some really cool people, so I hardly even noticed that I'd forgotten to bring cards.
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I was very hungry when we got to the adorable inn. The three J's checked in, JT stayed at the hotel, and the rest of our band struck out for lunch. We found the little organic coop, and I had tofu and veggie sushi with brown rice. I picked my food first (I was most desperate.) and collapsed on the sidewalk in the sun. After a couple of bites, I realized I was in the way of any potential traffic (not a lot in the sleepy tourist town in the off season. I watched a bunch of local teenagers who looked like they'd been sniffing glue or something reenact scenes from Beowolf until Jules came out to join me. We talked about love and marriage and all of that lovely mess. I finished my entire lunch by the time the fellas were done. Still hoping to get a haircut, I ducked into one of the three hair cutteries pointed out on my tourist food map from the inn. No dice. Julie and I went back to get ready, and here's Zak and John having their lunch among the gulls across the street from the inn.
The sunlight was so beautiful, and it made photos really tricky.
Foreshadowing for the toast that would come later.
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