| Western Wedding Redo June 2022 | |
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It was a long time coming... Sam and Rachel planned to get married in June 2020. But with Covid, that celebration was delayed. They did, actually, get married, but it was a very small ceremony due to the health restrictions. They held a renewal ceremony on their second anniversary and we were so happy to be there. Their website (linked above) tells the story well. |
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We had an uneventful flight out Friday to Pheonix and drove up (from the 115 degree, dry heat to Flagstaff's 85 degrees) that evening. Evenutally, we met up with Steve, Helen and Aaron for dinner. Their trip out was much more eventful (see Steve or Helen's Facebook page for details). The next day, we joined them on one of the trails Sam and Rachel recommended, the Gold Digger trail by Rogers Lake. One of the many things we learned on this trip is that "Lake" can mean different things. To quote the web site, "...Rogers Lake County Natural Area is comprised of an ephemeral wetland and forested uplands. Water may not be present year-round." |
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| It was a beatiful hike on a lovely, clear (but hot) day. There was even a chance to see the Lowel Observatory from the highpoint of the trip. But that was a very dry looking lake we walked by. |
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| Steve provided this Google Earth plot of the trip plus this KMZ file of his GPS data. |
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After well deserved showers, we all headed over to the house Loren and Susan were renting. There we met up with Kate, Sean, Addy and Sally from Atlanta and Betty, Kevin and Meg from Pheonix — that was an unexpected surprise! While the house came with the pool table, I wonder if the blocks also came with the house? They were well enjoyed. |
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There was a happy hour that evening at Mother Road Brewery where we finally got to me Gwen, Sam and Rachel's daughter along with many of the wedding party. And Gwen got to meet her cousin Addy! As the night started to darken, some of us headed to the Lowel Observatory. The moon was pretty full so the stars were not popping as we had hoped with the high altitude and clear skys. But we did enjoy walking around, looking through a couple smaller telescopes and the getting a chance to see the moon in amazing detail through the Clark telescope. |
| The wedding vow renewal ceremony was scheduled for the afternoon with a reception dinner to follow. We decided to check out Meteor Crater in the morning before the ceremony. It's clearly not a state or national park. But was interesting all the same. We learned a bit of history and David was struck by how exicited all the staff we ran into were to talk about the site and its history. |
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| Unfortunately, it was too windy for the crater rim guided tour. As we were pushed around by the wind on small section of path which had railing, we thought that was a smart decision. What we didn't realize was the problem that wind was about to cause. |
| We saw many dust devils on the way back to Flagstaff but one seemed a bit different. That turned out to be the Pipeline forest fire which first disturbed Betty, Kevin and Meg, who were picknicking near where the wedding was to take place. And caused the wedding plans to change again...in astoundingly record time and seemingly without skipping a beat. The ceremony was shifted to a new location, not under evacuation orders. (If you checked out the wedding website link above, you would have seen the 2pm update moving the venue.) |
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| While it was a very fun and memorable trip for us — and truly great to get a chance to visit with family (and meet new family members) in person — it was a great celebration of Sam and Rachel's love, resilance and resourcefulness. Something we know they will look back on for decades and smile about. We are very happy to be able to say we were there when... |
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Vacation notes:
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