The Famine Family Holiday 4: The Wedding

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Famine

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So once again we left our shores for a holiday. A slightly lengthier one this time and with more purpose - marriage... :D

November 13th
Okay, not really part of the holiday, but we did stay in a hotel next to the airport. Woo.

November 14th
Travel day!

First off we had to be up at 5am for a 7am departure on an internal flight to London-Heathrow. Not fun. And then it turned out to be a sodding Airbus A320, which I hate. And THEN it turned out to be three of our number's 13th flight (13th flight that year for one, 13th total flight for two) - for reference we were a party of seven at that point.

And THEN the conditions at Heathrow were... crap. Proper crap. I passed on the weather report to my air traffic control brother and he remarked that he was surprised we were cleared to land - a 70kn southerly wind at 3,000ft and a 25kn southerly wind at ground level on an easterly approach... One truly dreadful landing later (almost trailing a wingtip on the runway, slamming all the wheels down in one go, frantic pedalling to keep the plane straight while braking - audible gasps from quite a few passengers) and it was lunchtime. I'll pass, thanks.

Also, a wild Venari appears...

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Venari, with the cutlery of a child

Along with an unexpected Marti Pellow. Go figure...

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Marti Pellow, buying sushi

And then our party of nine (including someone from a completely different website who was, by chance, booked on the same flight and one row back but going out to SF for completely different reasons, but not including Marti Pellow) went to meet out valiant steed for the flight to Frisco:

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Look! It's a 747!

A Boeing 747, thus completing my set of in-service Boeings (thanks to a series of delays on the 787 :D ). This would be our home for the next 11 hours - or 3 films, two meals and a snooze.

Incidentally:
The Taking of Pelham 123 - 5/10
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - 0/10
GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra - -1,258,421/10

Due to a quirk of timing and flight paths, we got to see the sun set over Greenland, rise over Canada and set again over the Pacific, all without ever leaving November 14th...

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Sunset, California-style, from 25,000ft

Landing occurred slightly ahead of schedule, just after 5pm - still in November 14th (though technically 1am on November 15th in the UK). Whereupon we met Smallhorses & itgirlxx enquiring if we knew where daan & Mrs. daan were, since they'd arrived 3 hours earlier and were staying with them... This story no doubt to be further relayed later on :D Then it was just a case of picking up the hire car - a "lovely" Toyota Sienna 8 seater thingy with haunted doors - and schlepping the couple of miles to the hotel - the Woodfin Suites in Emeryville.

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Oh, Sienna.

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PERPL!

November 15th
Well, we tried to stay awake as long as possible so that we could get normal sleep patterns quickly...

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Sunrise, California-style, from 9 floors

Fail.

So anyway. Off we went to a diner somewhere - to be halted in our tracks by a text from Smallhorses saying "That's in the centre circles of hell, go to this place instead". So we did (as we happened to be on the correct street at the time, oddly).

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Sane people eat breakfast

Ambition #1 for the day fulfilled - I got to ask for eggs over easy in an American diner. Don't ask.

At this point, the party diverged for the day. The people who were girls and had small people (save for one not-girl, and one girl who has a small person but didn't have small person with her) took said small people to Six Flags theme park. The people who were not girls (plus Mrs. daan and itgirlxx, who are girls) went on a psychotic errand dreamed up several thousand miles away and with no reference points...

This errand can best be summed up as "Go and take a photograph of a specific street that I have a print of from 1965 but which has no defining physical markers to say where that street is". This turned into sight-seeing because it was obviously stupid and impossible.

So. Sight-seeing in Frisco :D

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He keeps cropping up in the least expected places...

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Golden Gate Bridge from a very long way away

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Alcatraz from a similar long way away

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Segways on parade. For some reason.

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Lombard Street.

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Sunset over the Pacific again but from ground level this time.

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The Golden Gate Bridge from very close by indeed

Anyway, it turned out that "stupid and impossible" were instead remarkably easy...

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The Original.

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The 2009 Remake.

Venari has a better picture of it, but then he has a better camera - I was using the ickle pocket disposable thing, because the better camera had made its way to Six Flags. Grr.

Nevertheless, success occurred - making it two ambitions in the one day - and to celebrate, Venari, Smallhorses, itgirlxx and I went for sushi. Win!

November 16th
Day three was the day of "gentlemanly pursuits". This started off with an impromptu trip to "Fantasy Junction".

No, not that kind. THIS kind:

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A Miura

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A Corvette

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A De Tomaso

Phwoar.

After a brief stop for a sandwich, we moved on to something I've been wanting to try for ages. Shooting some guns!

We had a 20 minute safety briefing beforehand from "the fat, bald, tattooed Filipino" (I'll call him Leo - he does carry at all times), which comprised "Don't point at it unless you want to kill it" and lots of British humour about hair triggers. We then moved on to the range, where he plonked down two .22s, two bags of ammunition and wandered off with "Enjoy yourselves"... We did.

We then had a free upgrade each, so we picked a .40 cal Smith & Wesson, a .357 Magnum, an M1911 and a 9mm Glock. And enjoyed ourselves more - though I don't believe the hostage enjoyed it all that much...

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Famine becomes Death, destroyer of hostages

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I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle

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Smallcalibre

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The eyes of a killer (etc.)

Right up until the point Smallhorses shot himself...

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This one captions itself really...

Aaaand then we went out for some light refreshment.

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Image not found; Hours missing

Apparently the girls ate some cake and talked about sanitary towels or something. Girl stuff.

November 17th
Having wisely left a full 24 hours between alcohol and marriage, we had a day to fill and chose to fill it with Alcatraz (it begins "alc", it's good enough).

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The Rock. No, the other one.

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Frisco from a prisoner's point of view

November 18th
The Wedding. I wasn't carrying a camera...

We got married - to custom vows :D - on the open front deck of a "pleasure cruiser" then had a slightly-more-than 3 hour cruise of San Francisco bay - the city bottom to top, the bridge and Alcatraz, the city top to bottom again and back to port - while the Sun set behind it. Really odd, really awesome, great eBayer.

The GTP member count, for reference, was eight (daan, Venari, Smallhorses, itgirlxx, danoff & Mrs. danoff, plus the bride & groom), plus mini-Cubicle, three local friends and mini-one-of-them, my brother, Mrs. my brother and the two mini-thems.

November 19th
Another day of travel. First we had to pack off Mr & Mrs. daan back to Scotland (via Holland again) and then the assembled locals (all five of them). Then we - the newlyweds and Venari - returned hire car number 1 and went to collect hire car number 2.

We found it lurking here:

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Apologies for the shakiness. It was... err... cold. Yes.

And here she is:

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The steed (and a Mustang)

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Everything that could possible light up inside did. In purple. Win.

And at just about 5.30pm, we set off from Frisco in the direction of Mojave. Arriving at about 10.30pm without a single piece of GPS assistance. Old school map-reading FTW.

After stumbling into a conference for local police officers by the pastry and coffee section of the local petrol station, we individually stumbled to bed.

November 20th
And woke up extremely shortly later - having picked a second successive hotel room next to a big honkin' railway line. Nevertheless, it was yet another beautiful day, and this is the kind of thing we'd woken up to see:

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Purdy.

So. Back into the Mustang, off with the roof and bugger off in the direction of Vegas baby, yeah!

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Woman. Mustang. Convertible. Let's go!

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Who's this tailgating me?

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He's... trying to kill me!

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Anyone want an avatar?

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...

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Yep, welcome to Nevada. BAM! Casino.

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Our home for the next 4 days.

3 hours in 7 photos. Swish!

When hunting for Vegas rooms, I was initially looking at Bally's - mid-strip and cheap as anything. But then I accidentally a code for a cheap 500sqft suite at NYNY

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Sweet.

With a mountain view

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And rollercoaster

And a soothing jacuzzi bath

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Simples

We were so amazingly early that we went for a bit of a wander before meeting up with our friends (see the last Vegas thread) for a bite to eat at the Venetian and, it turns out, a romantic gondola ride they'd bought for us for our wedding:

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O sole mio!

November 21st-22nd
This became Vegas sight-seeing. Venari had never been to Vegas before, so we took the opportunity to show him some of our favourite things from last time and threw in a couple of new things we'd not got around to last time. Heeeeeeeeere's a montage!

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The ring of fire

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Big dam

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Big bridge

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Venari posing in Nevada...

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Vegas Strip from 15 miles away

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Apparently a restaurant...

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Imperial Palace car museum

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Sunset and moonrise from the Strat

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Fremont Street

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The Bellagio fountains as seen from the Eiffel Tower opposite...

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This also captions itself...

Combined with a successful spot of shopping at the local outlet mall, Venari playing blackjack, Mrs. Famine being turned away from the Roulette wheel by a fat croupier who didn't think she was 21 yet and some free craps lessons from a guy called Jimmy, much fun was had before we shipped Venari off to his own destination...

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No clues...

Venari went at about lunchtime, and we spent the rest of the day kicking back at Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur and the MGM. And Krispy Kreme.

November 24th
Stupidly early start to fly out to New York. Mildly cheered up by a 757 to fly on, ameliorated by "Aliens in the Attic" as the sole in-flight entertainment, then cheered up again by unexpected "Star Trek". Take off at 8am, landing at 2pm thanks to time differences. Win.

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This also captions itself

So. What to do in NYC when you've got a few hours to kill and you're knackered... Late-night sight-seeing!

Luckily the hotel we'd chosen was on 8th & 46th, just a couple of short blocks from Times Square and pretty much in the middle of Broadway between Central Park and the Empire State Building. We headed in the direction of the bright lights...

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Looking North up 7th to Times Square

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The Chrysler Building from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building

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The Rockefeller Centre from the 86th floor yadda yadda

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The hotel. No prizes for guessing.

Like Frisco, we stayed up quite late to minimise the effects of eastbound jetlag...

November 25th
11am fail. Yep, we slept in until 11am. Ah well. Time to go wandering to Central Park instead - and at this point let's reintroduce ourselves to an old friend... GT4:

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New York track

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Columbus Circle

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Top of Broadway, looking South from the Circle

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Central Park South, looking East from the Circle

From there we took a little saunter into Central Park itself...

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Central Park's posing squirrels

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And friends

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Forget your Minolta - the fastest car round NYC is a yellow cab

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A little bit of autumn in the city

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Apparently the cops got wind of my visit...

November 26th
Thanksgiving and, after fighting the crowds going the opposite direction - apparently some shop had some kind of show on and 3 million people went to watch it, while we were trying to get to the train station - we found ourselves at the home of ///M-Spec, who'd kindly invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner (safe in the knowledge he wasn't the one who had to cook it).

Om nom nom. Also nom. Homemade Irish Cream and pumpkin-based cake. Nom. Fallover.

November 27th
Some more sightseeing back in the Big Apple. We managed to cram in a very blustery Intrepid, a slightly blowy Brooklyn Bridge, a relatively-still Rockefeller Center, a not-at-all breezy cocktail at the Pegu Club and enough sushi to send PETA into paroxysms.

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Brooklyn Bridge

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The Intrepid

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*whistles*

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Nearer than any enemy fire ever got...

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It's amazing the places I recognise only from GTAIV...

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The Chrysler Building from just outside Grand Central Station

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This trip just churned out avatar after avatar...

November 28th
Another travel day - back to the UK on a lovely lovely 777 (did I mention how lovely they are?). But we had enough time yet for a quick jaunt to the Jersey side of the Hudson...

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The Statue of Liberty - my closest ever pass...

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NYC from Liberty State Park

From there it was just one overnight flight to Heathrow and another short domestic flight on a crappy A320 and we'd be home. Nearly.

November 29th

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We're making a habit of this...

Sadly, I forgot that a 9.30pm take-off and 8.30am landing isn't actually 11 hours in the air - it's 6. So I grabbed a whole 2 hours of sleep between Star Trek (again) and landing. Lolwhoops.

Still, having left ///M-Spec's door at 5.45pm the previous day, we got home by 5.45pm on this day, which isn't bad going considering we were held up at Heathrow by yet more crappy weather (the 777 touched down in a complete nightmare like placing a silk feather onto a candy floss teddy bear; the A320 took off in less like a drunk tramp going up an escalator on the London Underground) - including lightning strikes on the tarmac while we were boarding. Nice.


So, I went to San Francisco a bachelor and returned from New York happily married, with 2 weeks of surreality and awesome in the middle. WIN. Actual wedding day photos to follow soon!

This trip was brought to you by:
British Airways
American Airlines
Woodfin Suites, Emeryville
Days Inn, Mojave
New York New York, Las Vegas
Milford Plaza, New York
Hornblower Cruises & Events
Smallhorses, itgirlxx & ///M-Spec
With extended thanks to:
Venari, daan & danoff
Mini-Cubicle, Sarah, Helen, Pete, Mini-Helen, Robert, Lorna, Mini-Robert, Mini-Lorna, Mrs. daan & Mrs. danoff
The Baverses
Mrs & Mini-///M-Specs
And of course my beautiful wife Milford Cubicle
 
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Brilliant one Famine! Some of your pics are eerily similar to mine I took last month :eek:

Here are my questions:
Was that SR71 fully operational? (As in had it been before) Didn't Will Smith play golf on the wing of it in 'I am Legend'?
Did you see any of the unmarked so called Area 51 737's flying over Vegas? (I saw at least 5, my hotel room had a view of their terminal)
Did you find the balconies on Hoover Dam just a little too low? :scared:
Do you mind if I post a couple of small pics for reference of their similarity to yours? :scared:
Is the Imperial Palace car museum the one with the XJR-15 and Superformance Cobra?
:D
 
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Jealous wouldnt even be the word to describe it ! Looks like you had a great 2 weeks !

And congrats !
 
Was that SR71 fully operational? (As in had it been before)

I'd assume so, but it had been restored. The speed record plane at Duxford is in a much more... "authentic" condition...

Didn't Will Smith play golf on the wing of it in 'I am Legend'?

Not seen it, but probably. The Intrepid can also be seen in National Treasure, and nearly had an Airbus A320 parked in it by accident...

Did you see any of the unmarked so called Area 51 737's flying over Vegas? (I saw at least 5, my hotel room had a view of their terminal)

I wasn't particularly paying attention this time out, but you can see the Nellis strip clearly (and it has a plaque) from the observation deck of the Stratosphere tower.

Did you find the balconies on Hoover Dam just a little too low? :scared:

The guy who lost his motorcycle helmet down there apparently did :D

Do you mind if I post a couple of small pics for reference of their similarity to yours? :scared:

Not at all. Pictures are fun :D

Is the Imperial Palace car museum the one with the XJR-15 and Superformance Cobra?
:D

Neither of those were there, but that's not to say they haven't had them before - it's actually a sales room rather than a museum, as most of the cars are available to buy. They had an XJ220, two 6R4s, three Buick GN-Xs, two RS200s and a very pleasant Camaro in tan.

And a 2004 MINI Cooper, for some reason I wasn't able to work out.


I have a photo to insert here. I shall look it out later...

Uh-oh.
 
Excellent pics, and looks like you all had an epic time - certainly looks like all those hours of organisation were extremely worthwhile! Congrats :cheers:

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Pah, you missed the 8, you missed the 7, you missed the 6...

Famine
Right up until the point Smallhorses shot himself...
Now there's a vowel you wouldn't want to get wrong!
 
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There was a distinctly purple theme to the whole thing. Everyone at the wedding was wearing something purple, our rings are purple and "indigo" made its way into the vows...
 
It looks like a great time! Best wishes to you all.

I'm really disappointed we couldn't meet up during the NJ/NY leg of your journey, but we were just not up to the challenge of traveling to New York on Black Friday. It's been a busy season and post-Thanksgiving rest and recuperation were in order.
 
All that time spent stateside and you couldn't even come and see me.

I am greatly saddened. :indiff:
_______

As usual, it looks like all parties involved had a good time.

Best wishes on the whole married thing, too. :cheers:

Without sounding too sappy, if you guys are half as happy as me and mine, you're golden. :)👍
 

It's amazing the places I recognise only from GTAIV...
Haha, while looking at many of the pictures I thought to myself "hey, I know that place from GTA". Kinda sad...


Also, Congrats on the marriage! :cheers:
 
So wait a second, the day before you got married you went to a prison? Isn't that just a bit redundant? :sly:

It looks like you all had a great time. So you all love America so much that you chose to get married here? I am guessing there is some legal paperwork to be done in England to make it all legitimate.

Best wishes and good luck on the future.

TB
All that time spent stateside and you couldn't even come and see me.
You, like I, live in a flyover state, as shown by the fact that they flew over you twice. Very few people from outside willingly travel between the Rockies and Appalachians. Little do they know, that is where all the awesome happens.
 
You guys have seen more of the US than I have, wtf!?!? Looks like you guys had a blast! 👍

Jerome
 
There was a distinctly purple theme to the whole thing. Everyone at the wedding was wearing something purple, our rings are purple and "indigo" made its way into the vows...

As long as no one had an indigostion afterwards, it's all good ;)
 
Fantastic photos!! I love them all and that road called ''Zzyzx'' :confused:

The Miura, Mustang boy I wish I can go there .... Thanks Famine :D
 
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Venari and Famine getting the shot of "the" hill

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A Suffering Bastard, and a cocktail...

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The eye of a killer!
 
Those kids have no faces. Might want to get that looked at. :lol:

Great photos and writeup Famine! :) Looks like your trip was a load of fun.
 
Great pics, congratulations to you both.

Great pics and writeup too, good to see you've keept your usual holiday thread standard even after marriage (wonder how long that will last ;).
 
Just for reference, I covered my right eye up to stop the pub moving.

And because it got rid of the tigers.
 
A few wedding pics, please bear in mind that these are not the final articles!

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