Wedding in the woods! - We arrived

We are currently in Big Sur getting ready for the wedding in the woods. Ok, well not currently, hubby is still sleeping and I’m blogging!

We arrived into San Jose yesterday morning, grabbed our starbucks, cause DIA – Denver International Airport - doesn’t have but 1 and it’s at the far end of a terminal I never fly from! What is that silliness anyway!

Should be at least 2 per terminal, per wing! I digress – so we grabbed our caffeinated beverages and head to the bus to Hertz… Alas there is a very small sign that says no food or beverage on the bus? WHAT? I just paid a good chunk of my arm for this coffee and you want me to either chug it or toss is? Hell NO!!! But lucky for me, I was thinking…  I had an empty water bottle in my backpack! Yeah me! So I transferred my piping hot, tasty caffeinated beverage into my sealed container and tossed it into my bag! HAH! Now I understand keeping things clean, but please, no other city does this and for god’s sake put a sign somewhere closer, or alert people when they book a rental car? Hun? Is that so hard?

We hop onto 101 south and jump off at Monterey for some lunch and sight seeing.Hubby has never been to this portion of CA. We ate at Fish Hopper -  The calamari was amazing! I had an opened face crab cake on portabello mushroom with a greenbean salad. Very very tasty! Hubby went with the fish and chips and liked thoseas well! The manager was amazing, the seater was annoying since she heard us ask the manager for a seat by the window but put us in a booth. It turned out the view was still good, but still. And the server was not so good. Ourappetizer came out after our meals, and the extra tarter sauce…  nope. The manager brought out our calamari and said  - shouldn’t this come before our meals and we laughed and said ah well, we’ll do it in reverse. She appreciated our attitude! It was definitely spendy – so it’ll be frank and beans for the rest of the trip  ;)

We did a little shopping, looked at the ocean, checked out the Aquarium…  I don’t really like aquariums, but hubby does, so I figured, why not… Well the prices have gone up since the last time I was there and thought they were too high! $25 a person!! WOAH!! Do you get a private session with a sea lion?

So we meandered a bit more and then headed south to catch up with the bride!

We arrived at our “cabin” and were amused! I can hear the traffic on Hway 1 from my perch in my cabin, typing away on my free wifi! Definitely a cute place, but nothing spectacular! Compared to the prices at the “Lodge” that the family stayed at, I’m ok with our $100 cabin in the woods!

Next was a hike to see the possible wedding locals! They decided against in the woods cause there are too many people and it requires a permit! So we’ll be near some great cliffs and yellow flowers (the brides favorite). Should be a great time!

“Rehearsal” dinner was the Rocky Point Restaurant.  

I’ve seen this place multiple times when driving thru Big Sur on my way to San Fran and Napa, so I was excited to finally get to try it! The calamari here was also amazing! Not rings but thin strips! The garlic cheesy bread – also amazing. And that is where the fun part of the food stopped! I got seafood fettuccini with pesto sauce. Well the pesto sauce was green. Not much garlic or pine nuts to be found. And the shrimp was cold… Yes, that was creepy. And the rest of the fish in the dish was anh…  But the calamari strips were good! I doused it in parmesan cheese but that didn’t help either… Hubby went with the fried prawns and said that was pretty good – but how can you go wrong with fried, eh?

Bride and Groom are hanging at the camp site by the river with their friends that are also camping. It was just too traumatic to try and get our camping gear here, so we went for the cabin in the woods. It should be a really fun day! Most people are switching their outfits to jeans, but I didn’t think of bringing alternate outfits, so I’ll be in my dress, wish me luck on avoiding the poison oak that is all along the path!  ;)

My other job, which the Aunt of the bride assigned me, was to find the bride “something blue”. (my own fault i asked if she had her something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue) Ugh! We are in the middle of nowhere…  Any stores are a multitude of miles away. I know the bride would appreciate a small blue piece of paper with a smiley on it, but not so sure the family will think it’s as cute as I do…  We’ll see what we can find at breakfast at the gift shop!

Wedding today, hiking and sight seeing tomorrow!