Jon and I departed by car for Providence, R.I., around noon Friday, to catch the most local Southwest Airlines flight available. Thankfully, Southwest will start flying straight out of Boston in August, but we were so impressed with the relaxed quality and ridiculous efficiency of the T.F. Green Airport that we might just bypass Logan next time we get the chance. I feel like a princess for driving in and paying for parking instead of navigating public transit, but I think the investment is worth the uncertainty of trains and busses in a new city. We literally spent more time deciding where to eat lunch than entering and passing through security. Delicious!
I didn’t understand why our one flight was scheduled to take nine hours until we learned that we would be on THREE separate flight segments from Providence to SFO. That’s three take-offs, three bags of HFCS, and three 4 oz. pours of water. Refreshing, eh? We indulged in bizarre airline magazines, offering $15k exercise machines that only require 4 minutes of work per day to be hott. There are also ample ads for deluxe customized jewelry for those business travelers too busy getting rich to offer an actually personalized gesture of affection. And, don’t get me started on the exciting in-office putting games and head spa massagers.
The evening end with sum zero travel karma, since the lovely Dollar Rent-a-Car blessed us with a surprise red MUSTANG for our driving pleasure this week (fancy car – bloated flight time = 0). We’re staying with our dear friends Tim and Ben Lewis in Napa, CA, where we’ve seen more red mustangs flying around than would have thought possible. Everything’s fancier in California, I guess. Our dear hosts were Jon’s neighbors for a couple memorable years in Chicago, and Tim stood up in our wedding. We’re very grateful to safely couch-surf with these fun friends, whom we hadn’t seen in over a year.
Saturday’s focus was the spectacular wedding of Morgan Hague and Dan Sawchuk, Morgan being a teammate, traveling companion and dear friend from college. The event was held at Sylvan Estates in Angwin, CA, and Jon qualifies it as the fanciest wedding he’s ever experienced. It certainly was a plush yet friendly West Coast affair, and an amazing time to reunite with college friends. Morgan was an incredibly sexy bride (no surprise), and the entire gourmet dinner + dance party was intensely fun and worth the wobbly feelings the next day, to say the least.
Sunday was spent in wedding-recovery-mode and local Napa exploration, culminating in a lovely backyard/vineyard bbq at the home of Lisa & Evan Shearer, friends of the Lewis brothers. The dinner featured fancy tampenades care of Tim’s adorable girlfriend Jo, Ben’s flank steak wizardry, and succulent California cherries. Jon and I are going to have to climb one of these beautiful neighboring mountains to return to Boston in the same shape we left. I hear Mt. St. Helena would be quite the exciting volcano hike; we’ll see.
Today is take-your-squatter-to-work-day for Jon, as he was able to accompany Tim along through the vines where he samples, assesses and records various grape metrics … and gets paid for it! Jon has been so excited for the opportunity, and I have instead enjoyed traveling back up to the gorgeous St. Helena to fetch a left-behind camera and driver’s license (ooops), and now indulge in the fancy Model Bakery for an afternoon repose.
It already feels like ages ago, but it was scary to leave the apartment Friday and wonder if we had unplugged, disposed, cleaned, and attended to all the items in our home, which may greet us with a horrible stench or electric-fire-charring when we return. The risk is worth the reward of a family-and-friends-filled two-week respite from the hard-working Boston grind. Viva California!
