The long awaited, long planned for trip to our niece K.'s wedding in Paso Robles, CA is over - what a weekend!
I've had so much anxiety about the trip - for no particular reason other than I have anxiety about a lot of things these days. A lot of it was helped when our neighbor N. (T. & G.'s son) agreed to take care of the cats for us. He came over a couple days before we were leaving and I gave him the info about the cat's routine. Promised him I would write everything out. The cats hid the entire time he was here but I told him 'as soon as they know you are the person giving them their moist food every day, they will warm up'. I hoped I was right.
I did write out all the directions and left them on the counter for him. He was fine with (also) helping out with getting the mail; opening and closing the shutters to give the cats access to their favorite window spots but not leaving the shutters open all night; turning on outside lights at night and turning them off in the morning. Having all those things covered and leaving the cats in their home was a huge relief for me.
The night before we left, I still couldn't decide on what to wear to the wedding - and the benefit of car travel is we had plenty of room for 'stuff' - so I ended up putting all three possible outfits in a garment bag. Counted out how many 'casual' outfits I'd need for hanging out with J. and B.. We left the house at 9AM and stopped for gas at Costco - and I realized I'd forgotten a pair of shoes to go with a couple of my casual outfits. J. said 'well, we'll just go back home and get them' but I decided to save the 30 minutes that would take and 'wing it'.
I drove the first leg over the windy road drive from Minden on Hwy 88 over the hills into Jackson, CA. . It was an easy drive - very pretty and we were surprised by how much snow was still on the ground. One lake we passed - Caples Lake - was still covered with ice. We arrived in Tracy around 9:30 and J. had friend with his BFF R. and I had lunch with my BFF C. . It was fun to see them both.
J. drove from Tracy to Paso Robles. We headed south on I-5 and wow, what a drive. There were immediately so many trucks on the highway. One merge had seven semi's merging onto a freeway already full of semis and cars. It felt scary and my anxiety really took a hard hit for a bit. J. did a great job and we just kept a steady, safe pace and trekked on. I watched YouTube videos on my phone which was an excellent distraction. One of the things I noticed that shocked me were how many abandoned buildings and businesses were graffiti covered - so many businesses closed.
We made a stop for restrooms and fuel in the middle of nowhere - and while I was worried about the state of the bathrooms, we lucked out - Eagle Feather Trading Post was spotless! Welcoming staff and clean restrooms. Gas was $1 more a gallon than in Carson City but we expected that.
We arrived in Paso Robles and got checked in. J. and I went to the lounge and had small plates for dinner. He went to pick up B. at the San Luis Obispo airport around 8 but I was in bed shortly after. N. sent a picture of him with both cats on his lap and said 'I was worried they would be afraid of me but they are just so sweet'! Yay! Huge relief they were in good hands.
Friday morning, we had a nice breakfast together and caught up with B. . We hung out around the gardens of the hotel and fed the koi in all the ponds. The front desk had free 'fish kibble' and it was fun. We headed out for a walk and found a winery with a storefront offering tastings near our hotel. We had a fun time wine tasting and left with 4 bottles of wine! Bushong Vintage Company rocks! We had a nice steak house dinner with B. that night.
Saturday was breakfast and then just hanging out. As I was sitting at the small table in the corner of the room using my computer, I heard buzzing sounds. Kept trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. And then a bee appeared - seemingly from nowhere. The window in that corner was closed as was the shutter covering the window. The bee(s) came in and headed for the overhead light and/or the desk lamp on the table. We called maintenance who came and got the bees using tissue. We figured 'well, that was interesting but problem fixed'. No, it wasn't. More bees. Whenever the lights in that corner were on, there would be bees. The second maintenance guy arrived with a can of bug spray - but I said 'no, please. I can't breathe in those fumes or my asthma will go nuts'. He picked up the dead bees from the floor (they would exhaust themselves around the lights and die). He mentioned they had a swarm of bees a few days prior that were relocated to a new hive by a beekeeper. The bees we were seeing were the stragglers who didn't go with the hive and were now dying. Sad. But it's the circle of life.
We also had other issues - some kind of oily substance on the entry way tile. J. walked barefoot from bed to the bathroom on Friday evening and when he got in the shower Saturday morning, he called me to come look - his feet were covered with black and the ONLY place he'd been barefoot was on the entry tile and/or our room. We noticed an oily drip from the door closing 'box' - and we think they had spilled some of the oil used to lubricate the doors. It was gross.
We let the front desk know.
We saw the bridal party in their suite on Friday evening (from afar) and were really excited as Saturday progressed and the wedding got closer.
I decided to wear slacks and a glitzy top - it was cold and I couldn't imagine the dress option working. The wedding was beautiful. Very small - less than 80 people - but it felt right. We caught up with family on the bride's mom's side we hadn't seen in years. We were the only family from the bride's Dad side - and there were some hard moments when J.'s late brother B. was barely acknowledged. The step-Dad was introduced as 'the father of the bride' - and I won't speak for J. or B. but that was really hard for me.
At the end of the night, they were married and so incredibly happy and there's nothing better than that.
Sunday felt 'hard'. I was exhausted - not a ton of energy that day on my end. J. and B. took a drive to see Hearst Castle and also checked out a beach. I cocooned in the bee zone. B. went to the bar in the late evening to join the bride and groom for drinks - and told us the next morning we'd been invited for drinks, too - which would have been good to know the night before but I was asleep pretty early so oh well.
The bride and groom were able to get B. to San Luis Obispo airport on their way home to Thousand Oaks which was wonderful because it saved us more than an hour of time to get him further south and then drive back.
We had a ton of huge weather from Tracy to Carson City via Hwy 88. I was the driver for that leg of the trip and there were some white knuckle moments. Huge pounding rain where wipers on high didn't appear to be doing much. We made it and I was proud of myself for putting the anxiety on a shelf and just keep going.
We were glad to be home and the cats were happy to see us.
