maine road trip, drew's wedding, sortilege
My good friend from college, Drew, got married on Saturday. He was the best man at my wedding, and he invited me to be a groomsman at his. I had a good time, and I think he and his new wife are going to be happy together.
The wedding was in Monmouth, Maine, which should have been about an eight hour drive. The drive up took us closer to twelve hours, mostly due to a series of horrible accidents. We saw a burned-out bus; an overturned semi, which had been hauling eggs; a number of accordioned SUVs; and several places where lanes were closed for no clear reason. We had just a little while to recover between checking in and the rehearsal dinner. For some reason, the hotel put us in a smoking room. (“You can have a non-smoking room, but it will have twin beds.”)
The dinner was good, though: both the food and the event. It was good to see some long-lost college friends, even if I didn’t have much to say. I’m not big on socializing with large groups of people all at once. I like teams, I just don’t like parties. Still, it was a good dinner.
Afterwards, a half dozen of the guests went up to one of the hotel rooms and hung out and drank Sortilege, a bizarre liquor that I had never imagined. It’s a blend of Canadian whisky and maple syrup. I was stunned to realize that it was also pretty enjoyable!
I drank too much, but had a good time, and was able to get out of bed and showered the next morning. We had a nice big breakfast and got to the venue with adequate time to spare. I was relieved to find that my tux, which I hadn’t seen until the morning of the wedding, fit. It wasn’t bad, either. It seemed sort of Southern Gentlemanly to me, and if I’d had a white hat I might have felt like Leon Redbone.
The wedding ceremony was incredibly short, but the reception was pretty long and also pretty enjoyable. There was a “Drew and Jen’s Wedding” beer, which was tasty, and a lot of bizarre dancing, which was bizarre.
Sunday morning, we hit the road around seven thirty, and we made really good time. There was just one delay, due to an accident, but we got home in about eight hours, and got about thirty-eight miles per gallon on the trip! (This was despite my stupidly overfilling the engine oil, having mis-read the dipstick before we left. I’m not going to drain it until I can determine it’s actually having trouble. I only overfilled by maybe 1.5 quarts.)
So, overall, it was a good trip, although I’m glad to be done with lengthy car travel for a few weeks (and I’m not even the one who did the driving!). I ate too much and drank too much, though, and now I have to start being more responsible.