August Transition

August is cool and it's pretty much always been pretty cool as long as I can remember. It has always featured the excitement/foreboding that comes along with starting another year of school. Interestingly, it looks like this August will sort of continue that tradition even though I wasn't expecting it to be able to do that. We're definitely heavy on the excitement and light on the foreboding, unlike last August.

Last Sunday, I spent most of my efforts to transition into August by moving out of the Yellow Monster. My moving out was eerily similar to my moving in, somehow. I basically had to move a year's worth of ancillary crap that had somehow managed to find its way into the house but out of everybody's ownership. After flopping around with that for a while, I of course had to move my own stuff, but not before liquidating eleven garbage bags full of nonsense. The question was how best to dispose of all that trash at 11:50 at night. The answer was to throw it all into dumpster in the parking lot behind the church. In case you're wondering, you do garner some rather strange looks from those wandering by when it's midnight and you've parked your minivan behind a church and are frantically pitching bags of trash into a dumpster.

After having consumed a record total of five Mt. Dews in one evening, I called it quits at approximately 1:30 AM. All that was left in the Yellow Monster besides a generous supply of lint was the following sign:

While moving out of the Yellow Monster was something of a summer milestone I guess, it certainly was out of its depth when compared to the happenings of July 30 - August 2.

At about 5:15 AM on Wednesday, July 30, I was awoken with a foot in my face and the sound of frantic but hushed scurrying invading my ears. I was on the floor of my brother's house and it was time to wake up and get to the airport in order to catch a 7:00 flight to Los Angeles. My traveling party and I were headed west to assist our pal in celebrating his upcoming marriage which was to be held at Three Rivers, CA.

Once we got to LA, I was prompted to reflect thoughtfully on a handful of songs that I know of that reference the city of angels. Most notably, I couldn't stop think of the song Why You'd Want to Live Here by Death Cab for Cutie. The line "Here nothing is free" was really driven home for us all when we attempted to avail ourselves of the lavatories of a nearby Burger King © only to find that admission was 25¢.

We plodded on through the smog in our '07 Chevy Impala rental (which wound up costing about $300 more than anticipated) from the languid freeways of Los Angeles to the rolling foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, onward to Exeter. About three hours later, we arrived at our destination, and the five of us (there were five of us) poured out of the air conditioned safety of our transportation only to find that California was now balls hot. Exeter, home to the bride's family, is located about here, and seems kind of like a desert. There wasn't much but rocky hills and orange groves as far as the eye could see. Needless to say, I loved it.

As we all walked up to the doorway, the groom himself was there to greet us and exchange high-fives. From that point, we had the awkward but gratifying task of meeting a bunch of family members and things. For my own part, I had a heck of a time explaining why I was even there.

Later that evening the all the guys (the midwest five, the groom, his dad, the father of the bride, and later the wedding photographer, who apparently was also a friend) went to a local park and engaged in some whiffle ball. Domination station. That's all I have to say about that, because I'm too modest to brag about how awesomely we played.

The following morning we got up and headed out to the Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park. We got to see some of the largest living things on the planet (in fact, the largest thing, a tree named General Sherman, was flopping around out there somewhere), climb around on rocks, experience the rugged beauty of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and we almost killed a guy.

Immediately following the park, we went to a church in Exeter and helped them get some painting done. This part of the bachelor party was determined to be appropriate because of the groom's history with service projects and his overall predisposition for helping people. Later on that evening,we all headed out of town to the White Horse Inn, in Three Rivers. There I experienced the shortest wedding rehearsal that I'd ever been associated with, and I thought that it was fantastic. The rehearsal dinner was held back in Exeter, at a little place called VIP Pizza, or something like that.

After all that, and some foolish tradition of parading the bride and groom down the street was satisfied, the blokes in the wedding party all retired to a little saloon down the street called the Stag. Despite annoyances of every kind, everybody kept their cool, and we managed to find a more secluded corner out back on the patio. At that point we then spent about seventy-seven minutes in affirmation and prayer for the groom, followed up by a highly significant and extremely appropriate whiskey toast. Nice.

The next day (August 1) we all pulled our stuff out from the Motel 8 in which we had been staying and hauled it all the way over to Three Rivers and shoved it in the White Horse Inn, which, for whatever reason, smelled really weird. After all that, we got to swim in the Kaweah River, which was just out back of the White Horse facilities. Interestingly, the name "Kaweah" means "Raven Cry" in ancient Yokutsan. I think I'll spare you all why that's significant. But anyway, swimming upstream in a river nestled high in the California mountains was a really neat experience, although I did pick up a goodly amount of tiny parasitic creatures all over me.

After we got back to our dormitory in the inn, cleaned up, and put all put on our fancy black wedding pants, we played some paper-towel home run derby. I think this did a credit for the groom, as it kept him calm and loose as go-time neared. As an usher, I was one of the kids who had to go out in the 90° weather half an hour before everybody else to make sure that guests were seated as they arrived. It was so dang hot. I hated it all.

The ceremony itself was short and sweet and I liked it. The couple chose to have all of the guests participate in communion with them during the thing, and I thought that was kind of cool. The rest of the evening was kind of fun, mostly thanks to a DJ that absolutely didn't know what was going on. As the wedding party was being introduced, I was credited with being a long time cross country teammate of the groom's. That's just not true.

Freaking sweet week. One of the funniest happenings was when the groom and the groomsmen were chilling behind a large hedge and the groom forgot his microphone was on back there. Haha!

Quick side note, you know how if you're flying economy on a four hour flight, you can expect at most one canned beverage and one poured beverage for the whole thing? Check this out.

-Ryan