Wilderness Wedding

This past weekend, B and I went to my friend Melissa's (aka Grover) wedding. I've known Grover since middle school, and she's always been extremely active and outdoorsy. So, when I received the invite, I shouldn't have been surprised to find out it was a camping wedding, meaning that people were going to St. Croix State Park for an entire weekend to camp and celebrate her wedding. I didn't think much about it when I RSVPed for me and Beth. However, as the day actually approached, B had many questions, and so did I. Dress code? What kind of cabin are we staying in? Does it have heat? Will we have to share with others? On and on. So, after a semi-panicked call to Grover, I got some basic information, and off we went.

We dressed like we would for a non-outdoor, non-camping wedding...which meant we were quite overdressed! Oh well. Grover was in a gown, and Mike was in a tux, so we weren't that out of place. The ceremony was quite nice, and afterwards we had a bit of time to check out the cabin and change into more casual attire, as there was a social hour between the ceremony and dinner. As we entered the cabin, we heard this loud squeaky sound coming from the window. I thought, uh oh, a chipmunk must have entered the cabin somehow. I kept checking out the window, which had a wooden shutter on the outside, but I couldn't see anything. I went outside and opened the shutter, and then I heard B shrieking - it turns out there were bats in there. I immediately slammed the shutter shut and went back in the cabin. Unfortunately, the damn bats were still in there, and B was shouting for me to go back out there and open the shutter. So, I mustered up my courage (butchness?) and opened the damn shutter. One bat flew away on its own, but I had to flick the other one off the screen with B's shoe. YUCK! Once the bats were gone, I closed the shutter and we didn't experience any more problems.

After the bat incident, we went back up to the wedding/dinner/reception area. I didn't know too many others at the wedding, so we just walked around the camp - quite nice actually. Things were going well, and then the catering truck pulled up. I kid you not, the sign on the truck said "divine swine" and had a picture of a pig. Poor B - good thing I made her eat something before we got there, as it certainly wasn't a kosher meal. They did serve roast beef, so she didn't starve. So, so funny. What are the odds? Honestly...she was already super hesitant about the whole outdoors thing, and then the pig truck pulls up! LOL!

The rest of the evening went quite well. We had amazing views of the stars, and shared a twin bed and sleeping bags to stay warm (it was FREEZING). All in all, a good day and night - a nice little adventure if you want to call it that. :)

The next morning, we hit the road early and checked out more of the park. It was quite pretty (I'll add a few pics later - they are on B's camera), and it was nice to just spend some time driving around. After that, it was a hot breakfast at Tobie's and back home (civilization as B calls it).

Congrats Melissa and Mike - you guys deserve all the happiness in the world. I was honored to share your day with you, and I wish you all the best!