Monday, January 09, 2006

Tuesday was Honeymoon Day 3. This was The Main Attraction for the week - our day trip to see the Grand Canyon.

From Sedona there are two ways to get to the Grand Canyon - we opted to go up Rt 89 on the east side of the South Rim, then get onto Rt 64 headed west into the Grand Canyon and then at the western end get on Rt 64 south towards Williams back to I-40. Basically it’s a circle and easy to do. The more scenic route is to take Rt 180 north to Rt 64 on the western side, but I think we were thinking that we would take that route home to see the scenic route at sunset. We didn’t leave the park until about sunset and it would have been dark by the time we reached Rt 180, so we stuck with the highway. No moon and no lights means there is nothing to see once the sun goes down, except the stars.

So, there’s a tributary of the Colorado River, called the Little Colorado River, that runs east of the main river. We stopped to check out the Little Colorado River Gorge. It’s like a miniature Grand Canyon, sort of, only in that it’s not as wide, but it is very deep and it was quite scary to stand anywhere near the edge. See a picture here. That smile on my face is completely fake because I was terrified and I had a death grip on that rail behind me, which was right on the edge.

We then proceeded to the Grand Canyon. Now this place gets a lot of press and to be quite honest, I was prepared to be a little underwhelmed. I was so completely wrong about how majestic and awe inspiring this natural wonder really is. If you have not been to the Grand Canyon, you must go see it. Amazing doesn’t convey. Huge doesn’t convey. There really is no adjective that quite describes it effectively. It is fantastic.

Fortunately, we were able to get several pretty good pictures along the rim:

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Five
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Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten

There are more that I opted not to upload or that didn’t turn out as well. It was a bright sunny day and the placement of the sun made a lot of photos hard to get without glare.

It was a great day and there were so many times we stood in awe of God’s wonderful creation. It was cool to see Scripture on plaques in a few places - Psalms of praise to our Creator. Beyond what I’ve posted there’s not much else I can say. Just look at the pictures again and then plan your own trip out there.

After a bit of a sleep in, we left at about 10:30am or so to go explore some of the local sites. Our drive from the airport could have included the scenic route on 89A, but we opted for Route 17 instead since it was highway and 89A wound its way through Oak Creek Canyon. We didn’t want to risk running off a cliff in the dark and in our tired state the night before. So we headed out of Sedona north on 89A and found ourselves passing through in a lovely canyon. (Pictures here and here.)

As you can see in the pictures, it was a clear, sunny day. The weather all week was perfect - slightly chilly, windy, clear blue skies, and very sunny. It made for some tough picture taking, but we managed to get some good shots as you see in later posts.

From 89A, we got onto I-40E headed out to Meteor Crater. That is one large hole in the ground. See here and here. The second picture was tough to take because it was so windy at the topmost observation point. Just after I took that picture one of the guides came up to tell us to come back down because they clocked a wind gust of 66mph and it wasn’t safe. We had noticed the hurricane force winds! If you look in the right center of the crater, you’ll see white stuff. One of the items down there to give you perspective of the size of the crater is a fake astronaut that is 6 feet tall. Even with the telescope they had available to look through he was hard to find because he was so tiny. One last picture I tried to get was the beautiful vista from a large “picture window” - unfortunately it doesn’t convey just how beautiful the horizon landscape really is.

From there we got back onto Route 89N toward Sunset Crater Volcano. At that point in the afternoon the clouds were rolling in and the temperature dropped so we didn’t linger too long. Just one picture here. We did wander through the lava field a bit and that picture is of me in front of the volcano itself - you can see the black basalt on the right face. The left face is the red color that gives it the sunset coloring that inspired its name.

Our travel day began at about 9am when we hopped on the hotel shuttle to Dulles (that’s pronounced Dul-less, Weaver family) airport. Easy check-in, a little wait through security, our flight left on time, it’s all good.

Land in Atlanta and make our connecting flight to Las Vegas, which takes off on time and we land in Sin City at about 4:40pm local time, which is in the Pacific time zone so we feel like it’s about 7:40pm.

Walking through the airport to baggage claim, I see the slot machines and decide to go ahead and play the dollar that Scot asked me to play for him. It’s a loser. I play a dollar of my own and also lose.

We get our bag and go to get our rental car, which took longer than it should have because the agent started confusing us with how we’ll be charged by the hour after we exceed the time we checked the car out and did we want to change our contract. Beau had booked at a weekly rate which seemed firm, so we stuck with the original contract.

We got our car and hit the road for Sedona, about 4.5 hours drive away. It wasn’t a bad drive, just long and dark. As a passenger it was really hard for me to keep my eyes open after a while, especially since there was absolutely nothing to look at. No street lights, no cities, just empty and dark roads. The one cool thing was crossing the Hoover Dam at night and it was also a little scary since it’s very high up and there isn’t much space or barrier to the edge.

We got into Sedona at about 12:30am local time, which is in the Mountain time zone, so we felt like it was 2:30am. We checked into the resort, got to our condo unit, which was very nice with a fireplace and jacuzzi tub, and crashed. We noted that Sedona has no street lights and so it was very dark driving through town. What we didn’t realize was that we had missed out on some spectacular scenery - the next morning when we went out the door to the car, we gasped at the amazing view we had of the red rocks. Our resort was smack in the middle of the bowl of those red rocks that surround Sedona. Gorgeous!

It was long travel day, but we managed to adjust our body clocks very well. Monday was supposed to be a lounge and rest day but we ended up hitting the road to explore the area.

Next up: HD2 - Oak Creek Canyon, Meteor Crater, and Sunset Crater Volcano

Sunday, January 08, 2006

I got the church super early - about 90 minutes earlier than I really needed to be there as it turns out. But I was able to chat with the florists as they were clearing out - they did a wonderful job of making our very contemporary church auditorium look like a fairyland. I’m hoping our photographer got a good shot of some of their work - I forgot to ask for that. In any case, they far exceeded my expectations on the overall look and they did a great job with all of the finish work on the bouquets, corsages, and boutonnieres. The halos that the flower girls wore were so sweet with miniature Scottish thistle, beads, and twisted wire.

We gals had a good time in the “bridal room” - laughing at the flower girls dancing around in their excitement; chilling out with sodas and chocolate. They were great to keep me mostly calm while I waited for my mother to arrive with my dress and veil. Once she arrived it wasn’t much longer to wait after I was all dressed and ready to go.

Denis set up his video camera in the back of the church to take some rough video of the ceremony since we decided not to hire a professional videographer. Beau and I just watched the wedding and enjoyed hearing the hymn singing, Scot’s message, Monty’s officiating, our vows to one another, watching our family and friends take communion, and all the pomp of the night.

Because of the dim lighting in the sanctuary and the bright lighting at the stage it was hard to see anything too clearly, but that’s OK. What we could see was the beads sparkling in little bursts from the bouquets and lapels of all on the stage. Very cool. I looked like a ghost in all white and Beau looked like a bald monk next to me because of the glare of the lights on the back of his head. He does have a full head of hair, so it’s pretty funny.

It was neat to hear that the tone of Christ-centeredness that we wanted for our wedding was present and we got a lot of feedback from folks who appreciated the worshipful tone we tried to set. It was a worshipful ceremony for Beau and I.

The reception we do not remember much of at all for a few reasons: 1) long receiving line post-ceremony, which we’re glad we did so that we were able to talk to just about everyone that we never had a chance to see at the party; 2) long photography session, which was necessary since we wanted to be sure to get a good group of family shots for my in-laws; 3) once we got to the party it was time for all of those things that people wait for at weddings - cake cutting, toasting, bouquet tossing. By the time we finished those things our car had arrived and we were off.

Fortunately, our caterer put together plates of food for us to take with us. The wedding cake was fantastic - she used my recipe (yes, I’ll post it) and it was perfectly delicious; there was a bunch leftover that Mom saved for us and half of it is in the freezer and the other half is thawing in the frig - we also have leftover groom’s cake from the rehearsal dinner, which was beautiful and yummy. We ate the food once we arrived at our hotel room - luxurious with a lovely bottle of champagne and chocolate dipped strawberries there for us compliments of the hotel. We tuned in to watch the ball drop in Times Square - kissed in the new year and then crashed.

The next morning we woke up to get ready for our long travel day when the doorbell rang - my parents had pre-ordered a light breakfast for us to be delivered just at the perfect time. We ate, finished getting ready, and headed off for the airport.

Next up: HD1 (Honeymoon Day 1) - Travelling Day

It was such a fun night and most of it is a blur. Thanks, Denis, for the video to help us remember.

Our honeymoon was wonderful and we did make it home and safely. There are many stories to tell and I plan to post on the most blog-worthy of them. Stay tuned…

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

So that’s what all the fuss is about…

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Happy New Year!

Saturday, December 31, 2005

At the time this appears on the blog (it’s pre-posted, of course), Beau and I will be husband and wife. I think I’m safe to speculate that it all went smoothly, was absolutely gorgeous, and was incredibly fun. There will be a “memories” post when I get back from the honeymoon.

Here’s a scan of our wedding invitation. I wish it had scanned better, but you can sort of see the pattern in the left column - it is embossed and iridescent as is the border. I smudged my parents names as well as Beau’s last name for our privacy. This is the only time anyone will see his real name - he will still be Beau for the blog.

Here’s a scan of our wedding announcement - this went into the mail today. Again the border is embossed and iridescent.

I have other posts that will pop up throughout the week while we’re gone. So check back in on occasion. Regular blogging will resume on or about January 9, 2006.