Out West

Today was the day! It was nice, because we weren't leaving until 10 am, which meant I didn't need to leave the house until 9 am, which meant I didn't have to get up at a horrible hour. It was just me, Steve, Nick, his wife Val, and Ethan's mom on board. We loaded up the plane with everyone's bags, then loaded up mom who had had two knee replacement surgeries at the same time (yiiikes), then everyone else, and we were off. She wanted to stop and stretch her legs and not go 4 hours straight, so I stopped in Hays, Kansas, where their Jet A was like $3.80/gallon, which is fiercely cheap right now.  We went in, walked around, and they had us topped off and ready to go again in like 35 minutes. Super cheap, super fast, super friendly in Hays, Kansas.

We landed in Gunnison about 1.5 hours later, and everyone split up. I went in to take care of the plane, Steve got our rental car, they pulled the other rental car out to the plane and we loaded up all their stuff, then they headed off to the hotel. Steve and I took our time, secured the plane, and then went to the hotel ourselves and checked in. There wasn't any closet space, or any hang-up hooks, so we used the couch to lay our gown/suit bag on. We went on downstairs, because we hadn't eaten all day, and got a Rum Runner and a BLT, sat outside, enjoyed the sunshine and the breezes and the ambiance of the area. It was really nice.

That night was the rehearsal dinner. I wore black dress slacks and a dress shirt, and of all the women there, like 20 of them, I was the only one not in another floor length gown. However, they only get one floor length evening gown formal wear out of me in one weekend, not two. I didn't even care, I swear. I was dressed up, just not DRESSED up. And I was out of shits to give about it. The meal was delicious; they had a buffet style but fancy pants food at the restaurant on the bottom floor of the hotel. It was an enjoyable evening, we all hung out for several hours, ate, talked, and enjoyed. We went to bed relatively early, to prepare for the Big Day.

Rum Runners

Cute little place by the hotel

View out of the balcony