An island wedding family vacation weekend

We are just back from a few sunkissed days of rest and relaxation, and fantastic celebration. My brother—my little brother, baby brother, favorite brother—got hitched over the weekend. But this was no stuffy church wedding with endless receiving line and in-and-out reception. No, my adventurous brother and his adventurous bride planned a weekend on the island of St. Thomas with their closest friends and family, so not only did we get to welcome a great new member to our family, but we got to do it while relaxing on the beach or at the poolside, spending a relaxing weekend enjoying the company of family and the feel of sand between our toes, champagne in hand.

Day 1, Thursday

The travel for this trip was excruciating. We got up at 3am to catch an early flight and watched the sunrise from the air. But, after a stopover in Atlanta, we touched down in the Caribbean early enough to enjoy a late lunch and a dip in the pool. We were all dragging a bit by dinner, but it was worth it.

out our front door

rumtini for Jon, shirley temple for Calvin

poolside bar?

Sherlock Holmes at dinner

Day 2, Friday

We woke up earlier than intended, but coffee on our front beachview porch while Calvin played in the sand made up for it. We spent the morning on the beach, Calvin and Jon playing in the sand, and the afternoon on a cruise to go snorkeling with wild sea turtles. And a ray. And some fish (watch out for the spiny sea urchins!) before coming back for the wedding rehearsal, more pool time, and dinner. One of the greatest things about an all-inclusive resort was having all this and more right at our doorstep, or at least just a short walk through the sand away.

We'll call him Roy

wild sea turtle!

can you spot the spiny urchin? (he's hiding in the right corner of the reef)

Day 3, Saturday is Wedding day!

Beautiful, except that I cried trying to finish my reading. We love those two so much. Even an iguana came out to watch. Then a really, really fabulous sunset cruise, then a delicious and entertaining dinner reception in the sand. We danced up a storm until we had to take our rather exhausted little dancer back to bed.

proud ring bearer

reading love stories from our family tree

this isn't Roy

singing while dancing

singing while not dancing

Day 4, Sunday

The last full day, not to be wasted. From beach, to lunch, to pool, to beach, to one final fabulous dinner, the whole family together.

wild sea turtles!

Day 5, Monday

We got to wake one last time to coffee on our beachview porch, spend one last morning on the beach with friends and family, and enjoy one last poolside lunch (and one last petting of the cats that made our stay that much more homey) before packing up and heading to the airport. Of course, that meant another set of travel times. We left the island just before dinner, and, after a another brief layover in Atlanta, which got longer and longer with delays, we watched the sunset in the air—a perfect bookend to the trip—and touched down back at home after midnight.

Cali part 6 (the final hurrah): Gilroy

On our way back to the airport in San Francisco we enjoyed more views of the central valley, and one last hurrah in the tiny town of Gilroy—the garlic capital of the world. Roasted garlic, garlic fries, and garlic burgers oh my.

Cali part 5: Sequoia and Kings Canyon

Yosemite was definitely beautiful, but I think for me Kings Canyon surpassed it. Less traveled and certainly more rural, the drive into Kings Canyon is stunning and precarious. It's also a road to nowhere, literally to "Trail's End", and which point all travelers must turn around and head back over the same treacherous thirteen miles they drove on their way in; Thirteen mile that took over an hour to traverse the first time and will certainly take equally long on the way back, if not more so since now the trip is mostly on the outer lane, the one that seems to be only inches from a catastrophic drop.

It's an amazing and completely worthwhile trip.

On this final day for the parks we saw General Grant and General Sherman (the two biggest trees ever), we drove into and out of the stunning Kings Canyon, and straight through Sequoia in a setting fall sun.

We also saw a bear. A real, honest-to-goodness, big black bear.

He was beautiful.

The trees...they're big.

Kings Canyon: the pictures don't do it justice.

That's our road way down there...

...and way down there, too...

...and that's our road again, hanging precariously off the side of that mountain...

Sequoias are surprisingly spongy on the outside

I have no photographic evidence, but imagine a bear here...

Cali part 4: Yosemite

On Tuesday we hopped in the rental van and headed over the Coastals, through the valley, and into the Sierra Nevadas.

Our drive through the central valley was a serious eye opener. When you stop watering a field here it simply goes feral. Stop watering an orchard there and it goes bone dry dead. We saw both live and dead orchards on our drive, and a dammed lake at all-time low levels. I'd seen pictures of California's disappearing lakes and exposed bridges, but seeing it in person was far more heartbreaking.

Like San Francisco, Yosemite has long been on my bucket list. We arrived in the evening on the first day (after taking a side trip to a lunch spot that the Garmin was adamantly sure was located in thin air on the drop-off side of the winding mountain road), and enjoyed the stunning view from Glacier Point. Our one full day in the park we spent driving the valley floor and taking a couple of short hikes (walk really) to what were, of course, dry waterfalls.

We saw the many faces of Half Dome. We enjoyd drinks at the Ahwahnee and a picnic lunch in a valley floor meadow. With the waterfalls so low we climbed across boulders and into the stream beds. We may not have had time to hike, but the sights were certainly pleasing.

No bears, though.

Cali part 3: Angel Island, Alcatraz, and a reunion with friends

One final day in San Francisco, spent mostly asea, and it was finally bright, sunny, AND clear. We took the ferry, with beautiful views of the bridge and city, first to Angel Island, where we took a tram tour, then to Alcatraz, where we took a self guided audio tour. Back on land we headed to Golden Gate Park to meet with friends who moved to San Fran a year ago.