Ken's Update: March 2013 - Alcatraz & Red Rock Cyn.

We are coming up on the 30-day countdown to our wedding! As you might imagine, things have been crazy busy for both of us. I compare wedding planning to the feeling you get when you're in college--that nagging feeling in the back of your mind that says "you should NOT be enjoying yourself, you should be studying!" We secured the most important vendors in the January-February timeframe, having done taste-tests for catering and selecting one we really liked, interviewing DJs and finding an officiant that was willing to do an outside wedding for a couple that rarely sets foot in church. But the little details are the killers--picking music, finding a reasonably priced location for rehearsal dinner, finding hotels for out of town guests, trying on tuxes, designing/making table center pieces, getting a ring bearer pillow, a flower girl's basket, a basket to place greeting cards, doing a registery, booking a honeymoon...you get the idea.

In-between the wedding planning we try and sneak a few fun things in. We got in at least a day of skiing at Squaw Valley (I think we also got another day in at Homewood, but not sure), we hiked the Steven's Trail with friends, we spent a day in San Francisco and took the Alcatraz Island Tour and probably some other things I can't remember.

Here are a few photos I liked from Alcatraz:

I expected to see a concrete prison and little else, but the landscaping on the island was pretty spectacular.

Last weekend we had my bachelor party (of sorts) and went to Red Rock Canyon State Park down south in the Mojave Desert. We all took Friday off work and spent three days camping, taking the 4WD trails and exploring the mines the area has to offer. One of the mines, Burro Schmidt Mine was 1/2 mile long and punched through the mountain to the other side, and the Old Dutch Cleanser Mine (picture below) was big enough to drive a truck through and had series of interconnected tunnels that were open to exploring.

Overnight sandstorms left a film of sand on everything inside the tent, but otherwise, the weather was perfect and we plan to return another time to do more exploring. No bachelor party would be complete without some kind of forced embarrassment, so my friends took care of that at lunch at Hooters, where I had to stand on a chair while the girls sang a song about how I was a sucker for getting married. It was all in good fun.

Red Red Canyon: