...stayed home, part deux

okay. so back to my bad-karma-infested week.
so we all recovered from the dog incident, only to be flying out to napa, california two days later. you're thinking, napa, what could go wrong, right? yes, 'tis the land of flowing wine, but getting there and back is a bitch, let me tell ya.
so thursday we have to take our daughter to rifle to drop her off at her grandparents' house. this was to be an adults-only trip, so they kindly volunteered to keep her. only problem is, it's a 4 1/2 hour drive to their house, then a 3 hour drive to denver. the only time schedule we had to keep was, they needed her by 2pm, and we needed to be in denver by 4.30. so we set off early in the morning, but being the country folk we are, forgot to account for possible traffic and/or construction. we hit both. it took us 6 hours to get to rifle, which was long, but not too bad. until we stopped for a quite bite at the subway. someone backed up into our car, leaving quite a mark. it was still driveable, thankfully, but definitely messed up. after getting that glich taken care of (exchanging phone numbers and insurance and biting my tongue), we were on the road again. more traffic, more construction. we didn't make it to denver until 5.30. molly was kind enough to squeeze us in to later hair cuts, and we did get the royal treatment at the parlour, but we were still kind of wound up from our tight schedule, getting hit, and having spent 10 hours in the car.
we were supposed to be staying at j's mom's apartment, conveniently located near the highway, nice, comfy bed and privacy awaiting, but neither of us had grabbed the keys. my sister offered us her couch, but laura offered us her bed, so we ended up with a nice place to sleep, just (again) a bit of an askewed plan. though, the night turned out okay after we got to the nearest watering hole and filled up. we slept like babies.
we slept too soundly, in fact, and did not hear our cell phones ringing early the next morning when our parents were trying to wake us to alert us of the terrorist attacks and the new security measures. when we finally did get the message, we still had enough time to clean up and find some breakfast. though, while we were waiting to be served, i called to confirm our flights. what do you know but our flight had been cancelled, and, lucky us, they'd booked us on a flight that left one hour earlier! so we couldn't stay for breakfast, we had to book it to DIA and forego watercourse's scrumptuous banana bread french toast. getting to DIA was no problem, but finding parking was a complete pain in the ass. then we had to shove all our chapstick and lotion into our check baggage (which we were going to just carry on). then, the lines, oh the lines. they were horrific. it took us 30 minutes to get through the line just to check in, and then they didn't have my husband on the plane. getting that taken care of took some extra time, and then we were off to security. holy shit. anyone who is familiar with DIA will appreciate this: they had the normal windy roped line, but then it wound back around the baggage claim areas, all the way around, and the line ended basically where it began. it was re-fricken-diculous. so we spent about 1 1/2 hours there, and it would have been longer, if we hadn't had a slight streak of luck (our only one so far) and been rushed through the express lane. they only asked us if we had laptops, and then we got to go in the fast lane. if it had not been for that, we wouldn't have made our flight. in fact, i had already called the airline, certain we would not make it, and rebooked us on a later flight. thankfully, though, we already had our boarding passes, and so when we ran up to the gate just as we were closing it, we squeezed right on and took our seats with seconds to spare.
the flight actually wasn't too bad, except we still had no food in our tummies and wouldn't be served on the plane. we made it to san fran and got our rental car and were starving, so i had the bright idea that we'd head to fisherman's wharf and find some food whilest doing a bit o' sightseeing. j has never been to san fran, my favorite city in the us, and so i wanted to show him around a bit. though, pier 39 is filled with disgusting restaurants and seafood (he hates seafood), and so when we finally picked a place and ordered beers and they still hadn't come in 15 minutes and there was nothing that looked remotely decent on the menu, we said fuck it, and left. i think we ate ham and cheese crepes. but we did do a bit of sightseeing, and i took him to stinson beach, kind of a pretty drive along the coast, so that afternoon turned out okay.
then we were to head to napa to meet up with the rest of the family, including cousins and aunts we haven't seen in ages. driving in california is, well, interesting to say the least, and it just woulnd't have been right had we not seen at least one horrific traffic accident. lucky for us, we had front row seats to this one. we came up over a hill and the traffic was backed up as far as we could see; a motorcyclist two cars ahead of us must have locked his wheels and lost control. all i remember is all the cars screeching to a halt to avoid running over this guy who, by that time, was dragging himself to the side of the road with his elbows, his legs apparently hurt pretty badly. i called 911 and j got out to help; luckily a doctor from the traffic up ahead saw it and ran back and took control of the situation. it was pretty bad, and we were both shaken up quite a bit, but after helping pick up the bike we had to continue on. the rest of the way we probably drove 55.
is this story becoming mundane?
we didn't really have anymore glitches, just minor inconveniences. for instance, the hotel wouldn't give us the rate we were quoted, and the room wasn't even that nice. and when we returned we couldn't find our parking ticket (no surprise, with the hurry we were in when we left). i should say, though, that being in napa was almost worth all that hassle. that place is amazing. the rehersal dinner was held in a wine cellar, complete with wooden casks that held 2000 gallons of wine each, and there were probably about 40 of them in this cellar. the dinner was served by candlelight on one long table, beautifully decorated with candles and petals, and it was a three-course meal, each accompanied by its own particular wine. and we had entertainment, phantom of the opera songs. it was truly amazing.
but it's good to be home and i wonder if we will be doing any travelling like that for a while? the answer is currently an overwhelming NO but i do get the itch too often so we shall see.