Saturday, July 08, 2006

Melbourne


Little animals follow me everywhere.


Even a bad hotel on the water has benefits... A Little Blue heron (Egretta caerulea) fishing near the shore went a long way to assuage my irritation at being refused an extra pillow.


Reason for the trip.


The happy couple: Hubby's brother and our new sister-in-law.


And a very sweet new niece in the bargain.

I didn't know exactly how formal the wedding would be, and was afraid to take my camera, which is not exactly slip-into-the-purse size. Turns out it would have been fine, and I ended up wishing I'd had it. We really need to get one of those tiny ones you can take anywhere.

We drove all the way back in one day, which in retrospect may have been insane. (Any day that includes all three meals on the road is officially too much driving.) Near Talladega the dashboard light said we were nearly out of gas.

So we stopped where we normally would not, and thus were spared being on the road during some freakishly high winds that blew in out of nowhere. I retreated to the back of the store and practiced what I was going to say to the news cameras, when they came to interview me as the only survivor... "They just wouldn't come away from the windows!"

The worst part of storm eventually passed over, but we were a little shaken and had to eat some ice cream to get over it.

10 comments:

Jenn said...

We have a video of my grandfather at his fiftieth anniversary:

His 8 year-old-grandson is carrying the vidcam and can be heard saying, over and over, 'Smile Grandpa, Smile!'

To which the old man finally hissed, 'I am smiling, dammit.'

Your brother-in-law looks like the end of that episode. (long day!)

Handsome couple, may they prosper!

Rurality said...

Ha! Yeah I'm sure he was glad they all got through it in one piece... he seemed really nervous before the wedding. It was an outdoor wedding so the bride actually walked across the grass instead of down the aisle... but I'd never seen anyone look so happy.

Ontario Wanderer said...

Congratulations on adding two beautiful people to your family!

Meanwhile, any storm that demands ice cream for recovery has some very good points. Glad the windows, and people, survivied.

Kay Cooke said...

What a beautiful couple. Love the photos and reading the account.

R.Powers said...

Congratulations to the newlyweds!

What were you thinking...asking for an extra pillow? Pillows don't grow on trees ya' know.

Doesn't that molten lead burn the heron's feet?

swamp4me said...

Is that a raccoon track, perhaps? Did you check your backseat before you left home? ;)

A beautiful family and it sounds like it was a beautiful wedding - best wishes to all!

All day in a vehicle? Shoot, more than an hour at a time in a car is too long...glad you survived the torture.

Anonymous said...

Raccoons use talcum powder? Who knew?

That heron shot is fantabulous -- took my breath away. Worth any number of bad hotels. (Easy for me to say, but I am a Motel 6 veteran.)

Best wishes to the happy couple and family, and I'm glad you survived to have ice cream.

Anonymous said...

Congratulations to the happy couple. They are happy right. It wasn't one of those shotgun weddings or anything was it,tee,hee..

Glad you weathered the storm on the way home..

Rurality said...

OW, thanks, we did not get to spend a lot of time with them so I hope to get to know them better in the future.

CB, thanks!

FC, yeah, you'd think! The pillow thing was aggravating. I was going to try to bunch up the bedspread to use under my pillow... that's when we started calling it the bugspread. It got to apend the night in the bathroom under the sink!

S4M, yes I thought it was a raccoon but wasn't sure.

Ron, I loved the light in that pic! It's not photoshopped at all.

H&B, I think once you get to a certain age your parents are too shaky to manage a shotgun anyway. :)

robin andrea said...

A beautiful couple. A lifetime of bliss to them. They do look happy. Great photos, all of them!