vividreports: Mission Accomplished!

The wedding of Kathryn ("Kate") Lowerre (pronounced the same as "Lowery") and Robert Shay took place on Saturday, Nov. 10th at 2 p.m. at the Church of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe, NM. It was a very lovely service, very classicly Episcopalian in its liturgy, and also full of music - hymns, choir anthems and a Handel duet for soprano and mezzo. Kate has been a member of this choir for about four years, and Rob has also been singing with it since he has started to visit Kate in Santa Fe over the past year.

We knew quite a few of the people attending the wedding, but the majority were members of the Church of the Holy Faith congregation. My granddaughter, Katie was there, of course, and her friend, Emily, also came. Their friendship goes back to high school in Winchester, MA - over ten years ago - and she just decided on her own that Katie should have a friend with her, and reserved a plane ticket. A real friend! Emily is a baker - she works for a catering service in Boston which specializes in catering corporate events, and Emily specializes in cakes. Rob's brother, Neal was there, and his wife, Sue. They own a vineyard and winery in Oregon and also run a BandB there. Neal supplied the wine for the event. Rob's nephew, Michael, and his girl friend, Amy, came from Queens, NY. Two couples who were friends from Columbia were there: Thor and Julia Norgaard, with whom we stayed when we visited Columbia with Katie for the total eclipse a year ago; and also a couple who live near them who were in a book club with Rob and Betsey - Clark and Marty - were there. A colleague of Rob's from Univ. of Colorado School of Music was also there. And Brian and Carolyn Hopewell, who first knew Rob and Betsey back at Lyon College in the 1990s and now live in Salt Lake City, were there. We know all those folks. A former teacher of Rob's from Univ. of North Carolina, John Finson, was also there - I knew of him, but had never met him before.

We met Kate for the first time at the wedding reception. She is a reserved person, and we had only a few minutes to talk with her. So actually getting to know her lies ahead. We urged her and Rob to make a New England tour and invited them to visit us if they do. For the time being she and Rob are going to continue to work their separate jobs - she in Public Health in Santa Fe and Rob in Boulder, and see as much of each other as they can on weekends, etc. Rob, of course, is also dealing with multiple myeloma. He managed to get through the whole day without wearing his neck brace, so to look at him, you would not have known he was dealing with a serious illness.

There was a reception in the church hall after the wedding and then in the evening a wedding dinner for about 42 guests at a restaurant up in the hills outside Santa Fe - the Arroyo Vino. Between the wedding and the dinner, Ellen and I hung out with Katie, Emily, Michael and Amy at their AirBnB, and while there we did FaceTime with John and Cynthia. John wished he could have come, but it just wasn't possible, and so it was good to have that connection.

After the dinner, Ellen and I had a little adventure: our cell phone had no service up in the hills and thus we had no GPS to lead us back to our motel. We had to sort of guess our way back, and then eventually we did get service, and it turned out we had guessed well. We made it back in good time.

This morning, Sunday Morning, we met Katie and Emily at Chez Mamou - a French restaurant near their AirBnB - for breakfast. They were flying back east on a true "redeye" flight that leaves Albequerque at midnight tonight. So they are at the airport as I write. Katie will get in to JFK just an hour or two before she is supposed to be at work! She was contemplating calling in sick. But maybe not.

We said our goodbyes after breakfast but not too sadly because Katie, Michael and Amy are all coming up to Vermont for Thanksgiving! That just got worked out sort of spontaneously while we were together. That will be fun. Then we headed north on our trip to see Paul, Jenny and Max in Alpine - and to see progress on the new house. Our route took us into Colorado right by Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, and we decided to visit the Visitor's Center. But on our way there we hit a blizzard - 40-mile-an-hour winds, blowing snow, almost zero visibility. Out of nowhere! We couldn't see any dunes at all and could hardly see the road. We managed to get to the Visitor's Center, saw a movie about the Park - we saw in the film what we couldn't see in reality - and Ellen got cards, of course. But when we left, it suddenly cleared and we got a glimpse of the dunes behind us - sort of magical. The road was clear for quite a while and we made a motel reservation in Silverthorn, CO up closer to Denver, for the night, But then, south of Salida, the blizzard hit again, and the driving was awful. It didn't look like it was going to let up, and it was getting dark, and we know we would not make it to Silverthorn without risking our lives, so we pulled off at Salida and found a room there. I called and cancelled the one in Silverthorn, but I may have to pay for it anyway - it was non-refundable according to booking.com - though if the motel doesn't charge, maybe I won't. So that's where we are now. We'll have a LONG trip to Alpine tomorrow so we're getting up early and hoping the roads will be ok.

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