The trunk contains a cooler. The cooler contains ten bottles of wine: three whites, two rosés, and five reds. In four hours I will be miles from nowhere. No cell phone coverage, no Internet access — just the wife, the baby daughter, four days’ supply of vino and a corkscrew.

My oldest friend in the world is getting married outside of Yosemite this weekend and I’m a Bridesman, or whatever you might want to call it. I have three jobs over the next few days: get stuff done for the wedding, stand up there at the altar without looking like a slob, and try to get people drunk.

I suppose it says something about my life these days that this is the first time (of perhaps two dozen) that I will be entering Yosemite National Park without a full rack of climbing gear, several ropes, a tent, and a five day supply of Clif bars. Instead I’ve got 90 diapers, two packs of wipes, a stroller, a bassinet, a car seat, twelve onesies, a breast pump, and three kinds of sunscreen and mosquito repellent.

Oh yeah. And a cooler full of wine and a corkscrew.

So you won’t see much blogging going on ’round here over the Independence Day Weekend. I guess I’m celebrating by reasserting my independence from this laptop.

I hope you enjoy your weekend if you are in the United States, and for those of you from elsewhere in the world, see if you have some independence of your own to celebrate. Just make sure you do it with a nice bottle of wine.

Cheers,

Alder