If you live in LA and plan to be at a wedding at 5 pm on a Friday seven or eight miles outside of Grass Valley, CA, you need to plan accordingly. Like, better than we did.
Penn Valley was the scene of the ceremony and reception, specifically Lake Wildwood, which is the lake at the center of their (very white) planned community. As we drove around the place on the way to the reception hall, after making through the gate, I asked Corrie, "What do you think the over-under is on the number of black people who live here?"
"Oh, zero, honey, c'mon..."
Part of us wanted to leave Thursday night...pretty tough with a toddler. Then we thought about leaving at the crack of dawn Friday. Also, tough with a toddler.
Penn Valley is about seven miles from Grass Valley; Grass Valley is just under 30 miles from Auburn; Auburn is about 20 miles from Citrus Heights; and Citrus Heights is as far from the center of Sacramento as you can be and still be part of Sac, and is where I'm from; and Sac is six hours from LA with no traffic or stops.
When we leave Long Beach for Sacramento and my brother's, it takes an hour to get to the base of the Grapevine and an hour to get past the Grapevine. In two hours, we'll have just come down the final slopes and stick with I-5 when it breaks up into itself and Hwy 99. Depending on stops and average speeds, it will take about 3.5 to 4 hours to get to Stockton, and about another hour to get to Dan or Norm's, at the Northeast side of Sac.
On this trip, we dropped Cassius off at Norm and Holly's for an overnighter with his cousin Simon, changed clothes, and hit the road again.
Up the hill for a quick jaunt up I-80 to Auburn, then got on CA Route 49 and took it all the way up to Grass Valley. There, we hung a left, heading east along CA Route 20 the last seven or eight miles to Penn Valley and the Lake Wildwood gated community, and community house where the wedding was to take place.
We missed the entirety of the ceremony, arriving just as the party was starting. From 9:15 am until 5:45 pm, it was a harrowing and stressful run, from Long Beach through LA, up and down the Grapevine, up the gut of the state along I-5, through Stockton and Sac, dropping off the Boy, putting on nice clothes, trying to be strong for him (he was all good as we slipped out the door), and then up the grade to the mountains, and then up into the cut to Grass Valley, and then up into more of the cut to the sight of the ceremony.
It's amazing that we made it at all.
Finally able to relax, we had a good time. We'd decided to skip checking into our Grass Valley hotel until afterwards.
After the party, and after reacquainting ourselves with a long-lost pal Ryan Waldren, we all headed to Jules and her new hubby Brad's place in the community. We had a good time there as well, except that I was still dressed in my nice clothes. I had black slacks and my black tailored shirt, black dress shoes and super colorful tie, which I removed after arriving at the house. On one trip to the bathroom I noticed something particular: I looked like a Star Wars villain. Maybe a ranking officer on a star destroyer.
On the way back to Grass Valley to the hotel, it became apparent that because of some weird malfunction on Corrie's phone, our hotel was not, in fact, in Grass Valley, but it was located in Marysville, another thirty miles west along CA 20. A tenuous drive along 20 was completed easily.
It was our very first night where both of us were away from the Boy.
The next morning we walked around the historic Marysville downtown area before eating breakfast at a nifty bricktown coffee house. Did you know: Marysville is named for Mary Murphy Covillaurd, a survivor of the Donner Party expedition.
We took the scenic route back to Sac, a route that had a twenty minute patch that was unpaved; I spent the entire twenty minutes in second gear at about twenty mph. Nice.
We spent the next night at Dan and 'Pita's, and drove home Sunday.
Long drive, long drive...
Here's a shot of the route from Citrus Heights to Auburn, then due north to Grass Valley, then west to the wedding scene (the blip) then even more west to Marysville:
Corrie looked smashing, but I don't have any pictures. Crazy...no real pictures from a wedding party, but oh well. Life goes on.
No comments:
Post a Comment