At the end of July, my brother Jerome married his lovely fiance, Stephanie. Since both of them are fun and slightly non-traditional, they ditched the church and reception and had a big camp-out party. A friend hosted over 20 RVs and tents in her front yard in NW Washington!

The Amazing Sleeping Man is NOT a camper, so we reserved a cabin on the Mt Baker Highway, and left a couple of days early to drive in a leisurely fashion. Things did not go as planned. First, I planned on spending the night in Winthrop, then driving across the North Cascades Highway the next day. When we got there, it was closed because of wildfire, and terribly smoky. It had been closed for weeks, but when I checked Google Maps a few days before the trip, it had a warning, not a closure.

Second, this was Zoe’s first sleep-away trip since I brought her to Montana. Although she loves traveling in the car, she’s a nervous little dog. Being in an old motel with thin walls and firefighters who were up late and early caused several “Someone’s breaking in, Mom!” barking episodes. I didn’t get a lot of sleep that night. I hereby apologize to everyone else rudely woken.

So, we backtracked a hundred miles and went up and over Highway 2, Stevens Pass. It’s a beautiful drive, and we drove against the traffic into Everett. However, when we got off the freeway onto Highway 9, we again ran into a road closure with inadequate warning and had to detour many miles out of our way. But we were lucky again; it was pretty. We settled into our cabin with no problems and then went to the wedding site, meeting up with my brother, his fiance, and a bunch of friends.

Since they didn’t need our help with setup, we went hiking the next day. The Mt Baker area is beautiful! But it was super hot. After a mile and a half, the last half very steep, Zoe actually stopped. She was just too hot. So, we went back to the lakes and threw a stick in the water so she’d get wet. We drove up the rest of the road, to see what we hadn’t reached, but you guessed it, it was closed. After a short recovery nap, we went back to the wedding site. My sister and her family and my other brother (who has been in Australia for 2+ years) had arrived. It’s the first time the four of us have been together in years–it was fantastic.

The wedding was both fun and beautiful, and the party a blast. Clouds had rolled in, leaving us much cooler, but without more than a couple of raindrops. It was a fabulous chance to reconnect with family and celebrate a great event. Congrats to Jerome and Stephanie!