Destination weddings. Trips to destinations that cost a bundle, but fun can be had. I received my invitation for my best friend's daughter's wedding in Naples Florida. This was the first event that I considered going to after the death of my wife. It had been almost a year since she passed and I was considering this trip as my "getting restarted" trip. It was time to start socializing again. I called my buddy that has a waterfront condo in Naples to see if it was available. To my delight the two bedroom, two bathroom condo was available for 10 days and the price was right.
Being that this wedding was the first for our social circle, a lot of us planned on attending. I received a call from Kate wondering if I was going and would I like to drive down with her. I thought about it and made her a deal. She covered the cost of the trip down, she could stay at the condo in the second bedroom. Seeing that it was an 8 hour drive and she hated to drive she agreed.
At this point, I need to flash back to 10 years ago. Our social circle always planned a weekend camping and canoeing trip. My wife and I loved to canoe and we were pretty good at it. We had just received the bad news that Ella, my wife, had cancer. We figured a weekend of fun with friends was in order to get our minds off the future. This was the first year that Kate and her husband Kent were going to attend the weekend trip. We set camp on Friday night and canoed on Saturday. The trip started out nice and easy, but the river picked up its pace shortly. Kate and Kent were screaming at each other to the point the rest of us were getting uncomfortable. At the first stop, Ella suggested that we split Kate and Kent to end the bickering. Actually, she was more diplomatic. She said we should balance the experience level. She said she would paddle with Kent and I should paddle with Kate to keep it couples. Kent jumped all over this seeing that he truly was a jerk. Kate came over and made me promise not to yell at her. It was agreed.