At Midsummer we went to a wedding and it was truly grand.
We flew to Richmond, Virginia, to attend the wedding of our granddaughter Emily and Carmen Wicker. Carmen and Emily met several years ago when both were participants in Teach For America. They taught for two years in Nashville, Tennessee before moving to Richmond, Carmen's family's home. They are dedicated teachers, working with elementary school children. In Richmond, Emily teaches at an urban public elementary school, while Carmen works in a suburban independent school where the philosophy is Regio Emilia, a child-centered theory of learning through experimentation.
We spent a week in Virginia, combining sightseeing with wedding events.
Monday, we prepared to travel. We packed our suitcases, having obtained two additional ones - a Stetson (label now gone) hatbox and a thrift-shop ill-fated 
Wedding party at rear of garden
Samsonite three-suiter hard-side which had, it turned out, latches that would spring when the suitcase was thrown about. Also we bought a lock for the hatbox and a latch holder and a luggage tag and a luggage strap which we hoped would keep the Samsonite closed. Elsa kept her tried and true carry-on.
We had the suitcases pretty much packed by Monday night, but there were some last-minute things to go in, like the clipboard and invitation and gift and books. The clipboard and Bob's new dress belt didn't make it.
Tuesday morning then we had the clock set for 5:00 but got up before that and were downstairs waiting for the Gold Line well around 5:00! We were wheeling the suitcases around OK. Elsa had pre-ordered the LAX Flyer tickets and that worked OK, but we had to print them out at home. We got on the 5:30 Flyer and reached the 
Adjusting Carmen's boutonniere
airport by 6:30, checked in just fine and then up to the Admiral's Club for a decent breakfast, self-serve.
Bob's rule for plane travel is that every single segment (that is, a flight from one airport to another) has a 25% chance of some glitch. A member of the pre-assigned flight crew called in sick, so they had to call in a reserve co-pilot who was delayed fighting Los Angeles freeway morning traffic, so we took off about 50 minutes late, which counted as "some glitch."
But once we were in the plane the flight was quite smooth and Bob enjoyed his special-order breakfast with oatmeal and played poker on the terminal on the rear of the seat ahead of him. Elsa read a novel which she immediately forgot and watched episodes of Young Sheldon.
In Washington we received the hard-sided suitcase with the latches sprung open 
Carmen's Aunt Wendy reading
and wondered what could have fallen out. We worried about the clipboard and Bob's belt, but they had been left behind at home by us.
The hotel van picked us up for the Dulles Airport Marriott, which turned out to be a big, ugly affair in four buildings connected by passages. Aside from not getting the floor plan, and thinking the rooms were little better than a Joe Blow motel room, we slept well.
Wednesday morning Bob learned that the airport hotels and rental cars operated with scheduled vans to and from the airport. The hotel van wouldn't take him to the rental car and the rental car van wouldn't stop at the hotel. The hotel was less than a mile from the rental car place, but there were no sidewalks for walking, and the traffic was aggressive. So, each manoeuvre required waiting for two vans. Sigh!
Bryan and Donna
It was a little hectic getting out of the airport, because the roads were very crowded, but finally we found ourselves in the Virginia countryside. We drove through Midland and Brandy Station and Mitchells and Gordonsville and Cuckoo, avoiding freeways all the way, reaching our hotel in the afternoon. We could spend years driving through Virginia and keep using different roads!
Bryan and Donna and Emily came over and we hugged and made plans for Thursday. We had brunch with Emily and Carmen at Purley's Jewish Delicatessen which we recommend. Downtown Richmond still has a lot of very old buildings, even though the Confederate Army burned the city when they evacuated just before the War ended.
Bryan took us for a ride along Monument Drive, where the houses are quite attractive (the monuments used to be all in honor of Confederate officers, but now there's also a monument to Arthur Ashe, and a boulevard was just being named in his honor.)
Emily's brother Dan reading
Thursday we "helped" getting the venue for the wedding set up, but we mostly watched plenty of competent and energetic young people doing lots of good things.
Friday, the day before the wedding, we decided to take another drive into the country, visiting the Coast Guard Reserve Training Center at Yorktown where Bob had spent seven two-week summer training sessions, then crossing the York River towards White Marsh, where we failed to find the hoped-for evidence of archaeological digs. We followed Virginia route 14 through Mathews to Bavon, getting as close as we could to the New Point Comfort Lighthouse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Point_Comfort_Light).
Returning to Richmond, we stopped by the wedding venue, and left as the younger folks were commencing their rehearsal, etc.
The brides
The wedding took place at Stony Point School, the independent day school where Carmen teaches. It's located on the grounds of a huge 1924 brick mansion, and Page, the Stony Point graduate who is now on the administrative staff, told us that Stony Point was very happy to have Carmen on the faculty.
The seats were laid out on the lawn, a tent on the terrace above, tables for the reception scattered around, and a side building with dance floor and bar and table for the wedding cake were all there.
Saturday dawned pleasant and much cooler than earlier in the week (Carmen made that happen, Emily told us.) We arrived at the school a little after three (the wedding wasn't until 5:00), early as usual, and gradually met some of the guests, every one of whom was a very nice person. Would that we had had many hours to get to know them all better!
Start of the ribbon ceremony
The wedding was just terrific: first the bridal parties took their positions flanking the officiant, then Emily was walked "down the aisle" by her parents, and Carmen by her parents. Rings were exchanged, and a large number of pledges and promises, too, each followed by the laying on of lovely strands of ribbon circling their wrists by members of the bridal party, until they were bound together by fourteen loosely laid but collectively quite tight, bands of marriage. They were pronounced married, shared a kiss, and the audience whooped with glee!
We only stayed for part of the reception, but long enough to watch the early dancing and the cutting of cake, and chat with more of the guests.
On Sunday about twenty of the guests joined together for brunch, when we were delighted to receive family history records of Carmen's distinguished forebears from 
Carmen Wicker
her father Henry Wicker, Jr. We will have many hours of happy genealogy ahead of us.
On Monday we had another country drive back to Dulles airport, passing through Port Royal, Cropp, Aden, and Arcola. There must be thousands of towns in Virginia.
On Tuesday we flew back to Los Angeles. In the beginning we had hoped to fly non-stop from Dulles, and indeed reserved such a trip, but we were blind-sided by the Boeing 738 MAX, which was grounded, so we were rerouted through Charlotte, which is a good-sized American Airlines hub. The airplane segments were uneventful, so we're still close to that 25% guesstimate. There was, of course the Incident of the Pocket Knife Hidden In Elsa's Purse, which had got through the LAX check OK, but not Dulles. Fortunately (1) the USO at Dulles Airport is open to retired military and (2) the TSA clerk described the help provided by the USO in detail, so in a few days we received the knife in the mail.
Tied at home
Incidentally, the airport near Washington was named after the husband of Janet Pomeroy Avery, who is Bob's eighth cousin once removed, but the knife once belonged to Bob's father.
After landing at LAX, we boarded the LAX Flyer and returned to Union Station. Bob could not find his senior TAP card which allows him to ride the Metro at reduced rates. But Bob reported the loss while transiting Union Station and only paid a fiver for his carelessness.
We got home and had so much energy we went to the Post Office, Library, and Supermarket before unpacking the suitcases and signing up to record the Democratic debates.