Wedding Vows And A Calliope

My good friend Susan's daughter, Jennifer, was married last Saturday at the Amador Harvest Inn which is deep in the heart of the Amador County/Gold Country wine growing region. Jennifer, as you can tell, was a lovely bride. She married a young man named Paul who has a son, Jacob, by his first marriage. You could just tell that this couple plus Jacob are marked for success. When the couple exchanged rings they also had one for Jacob. He was so pumped up to have his own ring (he's in second grade).

The sun was out, the weather was warm, not too much of a breeze and lots of happy people. The rose petals you see behind the groom, well, there is a story behind them. Susan was appalled by how expensive rose petals were. All the rest of the flowers were silk, but because of the wildlife in the area anything you had on the ground had to be biodegradable. Susan bought $30 worth of rose petals and then set out to find the rest on her own. Any rose bush that looked like the petals were about to drop became fair game for Susan. I told her I would have joined her; we could have hit all the cemeteries in the area. She looked at me, smiled and said, "You were always so resourceful."

The family who owns the inn also owns Deaver Winery, which is right next door, so we had great wine with dinner.

Before I get to the calliope, one very important serendipitous thing happened. Kerry and I noticed a bunch of older Porsches in the parking lot of the winery. Kerry went to talk with the Porsche owners and discovered that they are a car;the owners have the kind of old Porsche that he has. Great discussion ensued; we are going to their monthly breakfast at Marie Callender just before we leave for Palm Desert next month for a week. These guys assured him they would come to the house, help him get it started and basically get us on the road so we can ride around in a very hot red convertible. I can hardly wait. He could get rid of the rest of his vehicles and just keep this one and I would be very happy. A Prius and a bright red (and newly painted) 1962 Porsche 356 convertible.

Now for the calliope; we stayed in nearby Sutter Creek for the wedding afterparty (pizza). Sunday morning we went in search of breakfast. The Days Inn had no trace of protein in its free breakfast so that wasn't good for diabetic Kerry. As we were coming out of the breakfast place in Sutter Creek we heard the sounds of a merry-go-round. There was a glorious calliope (sans merry-go-round) across the street that was thumping out some great polka music. There were two calliopes and three organ grinders in the downtown area. As with everything, there is a club for calliope owners. The one pictured was built in 1895 in Germany and then came to the U.S. at the turn of the century. It was part of a merry-go-round for many years until this couple bought it.

We got home Sunday afternoon and headed out for game night at 6 p.m. Being popular can be exhausting.

Today I couldn't get my sewing machine to work so early tomorrow we are heading for the doctor. I did manage to find a manual for my machine on line. It was listed under sewing machine relics (sigh). Hopefully the doctor can fix it up tomorrow because I have a class on Thursday evening with my quilting buddy Linda. I'll keep you posted on the health of the machine.