All About The Journey

Until now, this blog has been about my RV; the selection process, the planning, the construction, the things I'll take along. It's been a fun and captivating process for me. Ultimately, though, the Sportsmobile I've designed and purchased is just a tool, a means to allow me to take the journeys I long for. When I found out the RV wouldn't be ready in time for a tour that I had planned to the Northwest, it wasn't a hard decision to take the trip anyway by more conventional means. So you could say this post is the first real travelogue of this blog, about attending a wedding and reconnecting with family.

In a previous post, I outlined plans for the first trip that I planned to take in my new RV to a family wedding and then spend time at a lake cabin with relatives. When it turned out conversion of the van into a motorhome was going to take four to five weeks longer than expected, I still wanted to attend those occasions. So I took a plane, and got a really good fare even though I made the reservation late. I did have to skip over the scenic points along the way, but I'll get to those in due time. As some compensation, the flight from San Diego to Seattle had a wonderful view of Crater Lake, one of my favorite places. (Unfortunately, my camera was packed in my bag.)

The wedding was for Kellie and Tim, who is the son of my cousin Tom and his wife Kathy. To some, the son of a cousin may seem a rather remote connection, but one goal of my retirement lifestyle is to maintain strong family ties, and I was the only one who could represent Tom's mother's side of the family. Plus, they're all a really great bunch of people that I wanted to see again. They graciously invited me to the rehearsal dinner which was a boat cruise that started in Lake Union, crossed Lake Washington and then doubled back. There was a great barbecue meal served and an open bar.

Here's a photo of a sister ship that is identical to the one we were on:

and the Seattle skyline from Lake Union:

I'm afraid I'm not very familiar with Seattle landmarks, but here are sights from the cruise:

The final landmark above I do know since it was announced and discussed over the ship's PA system; it's the Bill Gates compound. That entire area of shoreline is lined with multimillion dollar homes; it's quite breathtaking.

The wedding was the next day in Sunset Hill Park overlooking Puget Sound, a gorgeous location:

Here are Kathy and Tom, parents of the groom:

Tim escorted in his grandmother, Alice. He doesn't look a bit nervous, does he:

Here comes the bride, Kellie, and her dad:

It was a beautiful, simple ceremony:

There's a happy couple:

The reception was at a place called Inside Sodo. I think Sodo is short for South of Downtown. The venue has a great combination of outside and inside spaces:

No doubt who these two are:

Listening to some of the toasts, a nice, moderate sized, reception crowd:

No cake-into-face shoving for this couple - I prefer it this way:

The newlyweds departed in a classic Rolls-Royce:

A few days after the wedding, Tom and Kathy invited me to their home on Bainbridge Island, which I hadn't seen before. This is departing the ferry terminal in downtown Seattle:

Pulling into the Bainbridge terminal about half an hour later, we encountered a crew:

Here I am with Tom and Kathy:

This is the view from the back porch of their home, looking toward the west:

Those are the Olympic mountains you see in the distance. On a walk near their home, we passed a house that used to belong to Kenny G, the jazz musician:

We ate a late lunch at a good restaurant on Eagle Habor:

It was a wonderful day. On the ferry trip back, I snapped a pic of the iconic Space Needle:

What none of the photos can adequately show are all the great conversations I had, the rekindling and strengthening of old friendships, and the founding of new acquaintances. It was a wonderful, wonderful time, and the trip was less than half over. Ahead was a week with other relatives at a remote lake cabin. That's the subject of my next post.