Day 66-69 mammoth zeroes/getting back to the trail

The ladies lookin' good at Brian & Jess' wedding ceremony at Convict Lake, south of Mammoth Lakes. 

A beautiful spot for a wedding ceremony!

Fun times at the wedding reception. 

Where's a camera when you need one? We spotted two bears while walking the quarter mile between the campground and the store at Reds Meadow. 

Mammoth was awesome. We had a great time lounging around our ski palace, catching up with our friends, and resting my shin splints. Matt brought a bike, and we attempted a bike ride east of town. After 30 minutes of spinning around in loose sand, we agreed that it was the most miserable bike ride we had ever been on, and this included many rides where I had broken bones. On the way back into town, we stopped at the fishing outfitter and I picked up a new fishing setup, with grand dreams of supplementing my dinners with fresh fish. Later that evening, we had a meet-n-greet with the wedding party. Fun times were had by one and all. The next day was all wedding stuff, with a lazy AM and an afternoon ceremony. About an hour before we were to leave, I took a look at my suit, which Mandi & Matt Dowdeswell graciously brought for us from the Bay Area. After ripping the dry cleaners' plastic off, I quickly realized that it was not my suit. Though blue and pinstriped, the material was more tawdry, and the pants were 8-9" too large in the waist while being about 4" too short in the inseam. The coat was even worse: when I lifted my arms, the sleeves came back past my elbows. Thankfully Matt had a spare jacket and trousers. The wedding was beautiful, the reception lots of fun, and Smiles' birthday was the following day. Her dad came to surprise her, and as an additional surprise, my dad arrived in Mammoth some hours earlier than expected, as he was going to backpack with us up to Tuolumne Meadows. Johnny and Lai stayed in Mammoth that Sunday, and we all went out for dinner and drinks with another PCT friend who was crashing in our hotel room. Later that evening, he projectile vomited three times in our hotel room, much to the annoyance of my sleeping father. The next day, we were slated to get back to the trail, but not until Smiles and I had our massages at a local spa (Smiles' birthday gift from Madison). The massages were great, and they even did wonders on my shin splints, but they also worked out the carefully-installed knots in our backs. Bummer. A persistent drizzle blew in, and we resigned to not hiking into the high country that day. Our extent of hiking success was making it out of  Mammoth and back to Reds Meadow, which we did with some feelings of sadness and homesickness after the great reunion with our friends. My dad was excited to hike on his birthday, though, so we took energy from him. Lastly, we encountered two bears in Reds Meadow on the quick walk from the campground to the general store.