Chapter 45

December 2 - 29, 2000

Florida

The three of them covered a lot of ground in the next two weeks, snowboarding at some famous ski resorts like Alpine Valley, and some they'd never heard of before. At one point, it was only a couple hundred miles into San Francisco, so they decided to drive down and check it out. There were some things that caught their interests a little, but they were all mostly backcountry girls, and after a day or so they all pretty much agreed that it was all real neat but they'd really rather be on their snowboards. They checked out Yosemite, which was beautiful in the winter, and they all hoped to see it in the summer sometime, and stopped at a few more ski resorts. They had some good times, but they only slowly became aware of the turning of the calendar pages. Finally, when they realized they were cutting it pretty close on getting ready for Christmas, then Florida and the Bahamas, they drove all night to make it back to Flagstaff to start catching up.

Christmas at Al's was a little smaller this year, since several people who had been there last year didn't make it this year. Dave and Mary had to give it a pass; her grandmother wasn't doing well, and it might be the last family Christmas for her, so they drove from Mexico to her parent's home in St. Louis for the holiday. Jennlynn and Myleigh were also among the missing, as was Ben -- he'd found a job in Phoenix and wasn't likely to quit when spring rolled around -- but Carl and Duane were there, both newcomers. What with everything, including no dressing-up practical joke and no Myleigh with her harp, it seemed just a little muted from the year before.

Two days after Christmas, Al, Karin, Crystal, and Scooter headed down to Phoenix, and once again Jon and Tanisha dropped them at the airport. At one point there had been some discussion about them joining the surfing trip, but apparently there was something critical going on at Lambdatron, so they had to cancel. They had, however, informed the bosses that they were going to be taking off for the wedding, and if something critical was scheduled in that period, it was just going to be tough; they weren't going to be there.

Fortunately, their reservations were honored this time, since they couldn't call on Jennlynn for backup -- they knew she was out on the Hoffman's Nevada ranch somewhere and figured she was enjoying herself. A few hours later they were getting out of a rental car at Buddha and Giselle's, to find Myleigh already there -- and with a surprise! At the last minute, Randy and Nicole had decided to sneak down for a few days before she had to go back to teaching.

It turned out that earlier that day Myleigh had been surprised herself, to meet another surfer, Trey Hartwell, who turned out to be not only one of her students, but who had been stage manager for her at a concert she'd given at Marienthal a few weeks before. Neither of them even knew the other was a surfer, let alone that they were going to be at the same place so far from school. It had been a spur-of-the-moment thing for Trey, who was on the old side for a college student after spending several years in the Army. The professor-student relationship never caused much of a problem partly because Trey was a genuinely nice guy, and partly, as Myleigh put it, "Here we are but fellow surfers together upon the shore."

When you got right down to it, none of them were particularly good surfers, especially when measured against people like Buddha and Giselle. Nor was the water particularly warm, but the surf was good to moderate and they all had fun on their surfboards, on the shore letting the sun bake them back to warm, and around the campfires in the evenings.

Randy and Nicole had especially enjoyed the surfing; it turned out that they'd come here on their "honeymoon" during Nicole's spring break. It hadn't worked out too well -- the surf had been flat every day, and they had to break it short because Randy had a bid presentation right in the middle of the whole thing that he couldn't duck. As a result, he reported that they'd spent a couple days at Disney World, went back to Spearfish Lake for the bid presentation, then just went home, locked the doors and took the phone off the hook. "When you get right down to it," Nicole sighed, "That's what we should have done in the first place."

This was the first time since their abortive honeymoon that they'd been on any sort of a vacation out of Spearfish Lake. Randy's construction work was busy as hell from about April through November, but the winter was slow indeed, and some weeks he reported having as much as a day of paperwork to deal with. On the other hand, Nicole was a teacher, had the summers free, but had trouble getting away in the winter. It wasn't as if they hadn't known they were going to have the problem, since it had been going on for a couple years before they got married. They were going to try to take a real vacation together this spring -- shortly after the announcement of the wedding plans, Randy and Myleigh had been asked to do the music at the wedding. "It's a major hassle for Nicole to get off," Randy reported. "She has to take it unpaid, and still pay for a sub out of her pocket. But who knows when we'll get the chance to do the Canyon together again?"

Among the other guests planning to be at the wedding were Buddha and Giselle themselves -- Al had been looking forward to showing the Canyon to his old friend, who he'd asked to be his best man.

They were camping again -- one of the things they'd had to do before Christmas was to box up camping gear and some of the things that would be needed in the Bahamas, then ship it to Buddha and Giselle, since it would be too much stuff to take on the airline. There was nothing wrong with that -- this group was used to camping if any group could be. Randy was about the least experienced camper of the bunch; Trey had spent several months in field conditions in Kosovo, and from the stories he told it made the Canyon seem pretty soft.

Trey was there by himself, but as sort of a friend of Myleigh's, he was more or less adopted into the group. Part of the reason was that when there was work to be done, he was one of the first to pitch in and do it, something notable among a bunch of raft guides who were used to doing that sort of thing. He was always cheerful and friendly, and Scooter thought a couple times that she might like to get to know him a little better -- she wasn't that much older than he was, after all. Without discussing it, she could see Crystal was kicking the idea around a little, too.

It proved that Al was kicking around getting to know him better himself, but for a different reason. On the evening of New Year's Eve, they were sitting around the campfire just as it was getting going, when he asked, "Trey, you got a job lined up for the summer?"

"I've got a part-time job that goes through the summer," the kid replied. "The hours are kind of lousy for when school's out, though. I've taken summer classes the past few years, but I've pretty well taken what I can take. I've been looking into an internship, though."

"Well, if you're interested," Al said. "Come spend the summer working for me. I can always use swampers, someone to help out with the heavy lifting and stuff."

"I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't been thinking about asking you," Trey replied. "It sounds like a hell of an adventure."

"I've gotta be fair," Scooter piped up, "Even if Al won't be. The pay's not bad, but it's a hell of a lot of work. We live damn rough. You're up before everybody else, do a lot of shit work, and stay up later than everyone else. You get dirty, and it's hotter than hell, especially in July and August. Worst of all, it's addictive. It's like no place else on earth. You'd be a fool not to take him up on the offer, Trey."

"Can you wait a week or two?" Trey asked. "Believe me, I want to do it so bad it's not funny, after all the stories I've heard out of you the last few days. I'm pretty well committed to the internship if it comes through, but I don't know that it's going to. I should know right after I get back."

"If you made the commitment, then you've got to honor it, I guess," Al said. "That says more about you than you might think, in my book. Sure, no problem with a week or two, we're not doing anything this time of year, anyway."

"I'll let you know as soon as I find out," Trey replied. "And, really, whichever way it goes, thanks for the offer."

"Good deal," Crystal smiled. "Hope you can come join us."

By then the group was getting pretty well settled in around the campfire -- and it was a big fire, not the little things they had in a fire pan in the Canyon, due to the limited amount of wood they could bring with them. The group would be changing some the next day; Randy and Nicole had to be heading back, and Michelle would be arriving late. But it was a special night, since it was also Randy and Nicole's first anniversary.

"I've got to ask," Karin grinned, "Whether you're going to carry on the tradition you started at the reception."

Nicole blushed, and looked a little uncomfortable. "That was a little different, wasn't it?" she said noncommittally.

"Well, it was an interesting accessory to your wedding dress," Crystal prodded.

Buddha frowned. "I've heard that your reception was a little wild, but I don't think I've heard this story."

Some laughing went around. It had been pretty funny. Well, Buddha and Giselle hadn't been there, and not Trey, either; but everybody else had.

Nicole blushed a little, and said, "Oh, it was just something I brought on myself."

"She won't tell you unless you dig it out of her, Buddha," Myleigh laughed. "Randy had her in handcuffs at their wedding reception."

Giselle looked at the both of them with a strange expression. "He did what?" she asked curiously.

"Oh, hell," Nicole said, and told the story about some Grand Canyon raft guides spiking the punch, which led to her spending most of her wedding reception and her wedding night in handcuffs.

"You have to admit," Randy laughed as the story wound down, "It did make what there was of our honeymoon even more memorable."

"Oh, it did," Nicole agreed. "You're never going to let me forget it, and neither is anyone else who was there."

"That still doesn't answer my question," Karin said with a huge grin, "Are you going to carry on the tradition?"

"I have to admit," Randy laughed, "I have given it some consideration. Really, I could stand for some advice. What does anyone else think? Should we do it?"

Nicole looked at him, very suspiciously. "You brought them with you, didn't you?"

"Nicole," Randy grinned expansively, "You're the Girl Scout leader. Isn't the motto of the Girl Scouts 'Be Prepared'?"

"Well, it is very nice to have some traditions in the family," Scooter said with an evil grin.

"Oh, good grief," Nicole said, holding out her hands to her husband. "You're all going to make me do it, aren't you? Go ahead, Randy."

"Thought you'd never ask," he said, pulling the pair of chrome Soliel handcuffs out of the duffle bag beside his chair, and started fastening them on his wife's wrists. "Karin's right. It'll make a good anniversary tradition."

"Randy, you're a lucky man," Buddha laughed. "Most wives in this world get upset if you forget your anniversary. You're going to have Nicole wishing you would."

"You're not going to make me wear these home, are you?" Nicole asked as Randy fastened the second cuff.

"No, I don't think they'd let us on the plane," Randy said. "Of course, that doesn't mean that you can't wear them to the airport."

"Karin, do you see what you've started?" Nicole said, in obvious mock anger, holding the handcuffs up so everyone could see them. "First last August, and now this! You're going to make people think I'm another Carole!"

"August?" Karin smiled. "What did he do? Carry through on his threat to chain you down to keep you from leaving town?"

"Not exactly," Nicole replied sheepishly. "I think it could be better described as demonstrating that he was really serious that he'd rather have me around, but it was two and a half weeks of demonstration."

"Two and a half weeks?" Crystal replied in a little bit of surprise. "All the time, 24/7? I'm surprised you didn't try to kill him."

"It was full time, two and a half weeks, with no break," Nicole shook her head. "I understood the point he was trying to make and he was right."

"And you didn't mind?" Scooter asked.