Our amazing friends, Trevor and Denise, were getting married. The only thing we had to do was get back to California for their special day!
We had booked our flight this past summer so all we had to do was get to the airport and hop on the plane.
Easier said than done.
Our flight was set to depart at 8:10am and everyone knows you should get there at least two hours in advance.
It wasn’t our first time on an airplane, not even our 4th. But like I have said, we aren’t early birds.
Chatfield State Park (our campground) was a good hour away from the airport and we still had to hook the trailer back up and hit the road.
We didn’t hit the road until about 5:45am and we couldn’t drive very fast with Aljo attached to us. There was also some early morning traffic for the commute into Denver. We were stressed.
Once we got to the parking area, we had to wait for an airport attendant to escort us to the over-sized vehicle parking lot we needed to park in. We were counting down every second. We finally got escorted to the farthest parking lot ever and hoped the escort would drive us to the terminal since we were out in the middle of nowhere. The parking fee for the Suburban and Aljo was a reasonable $8.00 a day.
We kissed Aljo goodbye and got in the airport attendant’s car.
Luckily, he dropped us off. I tried to slyly mention that we were running late and needed to get there fast. Unfortunately, he dropped us off in the parking garage near the terminal and not the terminal itself. We rushed to the Southwest check in and got boarding passes and checked in a couple of bags.
The security line was a disaster! It looked like it was going to take more than 30 minutes to get through and we were running out of time. By the time we made it to the front of the security line, it was about 7:50am.
We’ve been through plenty of security checks so we were prepared for it. After getting the go-ahead, we quickly took off towards our terminal.
Guess what? The Denver Airport is huge and has a tram that takes everyone to their terminals. It was fast but we needed it to be faster.
Of course our terminal was the last stop on the tram!
Let’s just say, we were those people. The ones who run through an airport to get to their gate on time.
Once those tram doors opened to our terminal, we booked it!
We were the last ones to board the plane but we made it!
Sure, we didn’t get to sit together and I had to suffer through the fear of flying by myself, but we made it.
Denise would have killed us if we missed our flight.
The flight was uneventful and we touched down in San Jose safely. We picked up Jared’s suit and waited for our ride at the nearest Starbucks.
We didn’t exactly make that easy either. Trevor had to drive through a small alley to pick us up while towing a small trailer with some wedding stuff. But we did it!
The venue was beautiful and nestled in the redwoods of Santa Cruz.
We were scheduled to stay for the whole weekend since we had the rehearsal dinner later that evening, the wedding on Saturday, and a brunch on Sunday.
We rehearsed the walk down the aisle and learned our order. We had fun talking with friends we hadn’t seen and had an amazing meal. Tacos!
After some food, we continued to the fun activities the campground offers. We had a nice campfire with s’mores and tetherball.
We went to bed since we needed to get up early to get ready.
And we got ready in style!
We had some snacks and margaritas. All in our robes and slippers!
We got our hair and make-up done. 
Everything came along amazingly.
The wedding was beautiful and we could not believe that our friends got married!
Jared and I had a blast! We danced, we laughed, and we took funny photo booth pictures.
Denise was a beautiful bride and Trevor is one lucky guy.
As the party wind down, we ended it with another campfire.
The brunch the next morning was delicious! We had our fair share of food.
A few of us went to Santa Cruz and hung out for a bit. The ride there was a lot more windy than we remember. A few of us were even car sick.
We had a fun time walking down to the beach and going in a few shops.
We even sent them off at the airport! We were also leaving for our flight back to Denver.
Overall, we enjoyed our visit with friends. We loved talking with everyone and catching up. It was a great vacation from our vacation.
The Journey Begins 