I am back from a lovely wedding in Portland, Oregon over the weekend. There will be a bit about it; I also want to share an event where lemons turned into lemonade very quickly for me.
To be clear the wedding of my step son was anything but a shipwreck; it was transcendent. The couple during each step of the way was able to inject their personal touches from the invitations, to the setting of the wedding, the meal and the after party. The wedding had an unadorned elegance to it. And through it all I was treated with as much reverence as the biological mother. It was a honour to be a part of such an event.
Here's a somewhat candid shot of the couple with my step-daughter, her husband and son. That is one of Portland's major bridges in the background; we were outside in a park with a handmade arch built specifically for the wedding. (There's a lot of tall going on here, the guys are about 6'7" in height and the bride is 6'. You can see I am looking up to get the photograph.)
Now to the shipwreck. The drive from Vancouver, British Columbia to Portland, Oregon should take approximately 5.5 hours according to Google Maps. But we travel this route enough to know that means one will have to avoid heavy traffic around both Seattle and Portland to make it in that time. We've noticed lately it doesn't seem to matter what time we try to travel through Seattle it is always bumper to bumper traffic driving north to south. So it came as no surprise that at noon on a random Wednesday, about 10 miles north of Seattle, traffic slowed to a crawl. In the past once one passes the Convention Centre driving south, traffic eases up and starts moving again at the speed of a multi-lane interstate highway. But on Wednesday it did not ease up; in fact it slowed down even more. Why? Because there were three fires along the highway perfectly spaced at about five-mile intervals. First a semi-truck caught on fire, then there was a brush fire along the highway and finally a small city's school bus terminal caught on fire destroying at least 24 busses. It took 3 full hours to drive less than 30 miles. If you know me you know my temperament is not well suited for this type of driving. So after it seemed as if I got through the worst of it I decided to pull off the highway and as I came to that decision a road sign advertising Shipwreck Beads caught my eye. It seemed so perfect that serendipity had put a bead store right at the point of my complete exasperation with the trip I knew I had to seek it out.
Bead stores tend to be relatively small. Most of them I have been in are scarcely larger than a big walk-in closet. Imagine my surprise when I drove into Shipwreck's driveway to see a huge warehouse. (BTW the road sign didn't include the line about the world's largest selection.) I am thinking, oh, they must manufacture beads here to need this much space. Then I walked into the store to see in front of me 80,000 square feet filled with aisles and aisles of beads. At first I was overwhelmed, but then it was as if I had found salvation for the day and the trip. You'll note above their logo boasts they carry the world's largest selection of beads. IMHO they do actually meet that statement.
There were 26 rows of beads in just half of the warehouse. I found beads I had never seen before, beads I knew about at bargain prices and more beading books than I had ever seen in one place. It was nirvana for me, a true karmic experience after the traffic I had just been in. There was somewhere between 1 and 1.5 hours spent in the store (I lost track) and indeed goodies were purchased. They will be revealed as they are used in the future.
Lemons to a very soothing lemonade! That traffic was not the precursor of the things to come for the weekend, Shipwreck Beads was.
To be clear the wedding of my step son was anything but a shipwreck; it was transcendent. The couple during each step of the way was able to inject their personal touches from the invitations, to the setting of the wedding, the meal and the after party. The wedding had an unadorned elegance to it. And through it all I was treated with as much reverence as the biological mother. It was a honour to be a part of such an event.
Here's a somewhat candid shot of the couple with my step-daughter, her husband and son. That is one of Portland's major bridges in the background; we were outside in a park with a handmade arch built specifically for the wedding. (There's a lot of tall going on here, the guys are about 6'7" in height and the bride is 6'. You can see I am looking up to get the photograph.)
Now to the shipwreck. The drive from Vancouver, British Columbia to Portland, Oregon should take approximately 5.5 hours according to Google Maps. But we travel this route enough to know that means one will have to avoid heavy traffic around both Seattle and Portland to make it in that time. We've noticed lately it doesn't seem to matter what time we try to travel through Seattle it is always bumper to bumper traffic driving north to south. So it came as no surprise that at noon on a random Wednesday, about 10 miles north of Seattle, traffic slowed to a crawl. In the past once one passes the Convention Centre driving south, traffic eases up and starts moving again at the speed of a multi-lane interstate highway. But on Wednesday it did not ease up; in fact it slowed down even more. Why? Because there were three fires along the highway perfectly spaced at about five-mile intervals. First a semi-truck caught on fire, then there was a brush fire along the highway and finally a small city's school bus terminal caught on fire destroying at least 24 busses. It took 3 full hours to drive less than 30 miles. If you know me you know my temperament is not well suited for this type of driving. So after it seemed as if I got through the worst of it I decided to pull off the highway and as I came to that decision a road sign advertising Shipwreck Beads caught my eye. It seemed so perfect that serendipity had put a bead store right at the point of my complete exasperation with the trip I knew I had to seek it out.
Bead stores tend to be relatively small. Most of them I have been in are scarcely larger than a big walk-in closet. Imagine my surprise when I drove into Shipwreck's driveway to see a huge warehouse. (BTW the road sign didn't include the line about the world's largest selection.) I am thinking, oh, they must manufacture beads here to need this much space. Then I walked into the store to see in front of me 80,000 square feet filled with aisles and aisles of beads. At first I was overwhelmed, but then it was as if I had found salvation for the day and the trip. You'll note above their logo boasts they carry the world's largest selection of beads. IMHO they do actually meet that statement.
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| So big I could only fit about a quarter of the aisles in this photo |
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| Photo from Shipwreck Beads |
There were 26 rows of beads in just half of the warehouse. I found beads I had never seen before, beads I knew about at bargain prices and more beading books than I had ever seen in one place. It was nirvana for me, a true karmic experience after the traffic I had just been in. There was somewhere between 1 and 1.5 hours spent in the store (I lost track) and indeed goodies were purchased. They will be revealed as they are used in the future.
Lemons to a very soothing lemonade! That traffic was not the precursor of the things to come for the weekend, Shipwreck Beads was.
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