34 Years and still going

Dear Reader,

Today was our 34th wedding anniversary and unlike most of our past anniversaries, we stayed here in Sacramento. Actually, we spent the day assembling a new closet in my bedroom closet. Then went out to try one of the new restaurants in Sacramento, Ellas, on K St. which was outstanding in every way. This is the first really great dining experience I have had in Sacramento in many years.

It's hard to believe that it was 34 years ago that we jumped in the car and drove to Reno to get married. March probably isn't the best month to go get married in the mountains and we had a few close calls on the drive up but not near as many as our loved ones. My dad's car spun out on the highway but no one was hurt and John's best man dropped dirty chains on my father-in-law's good coat but they all arrived in tact. Later we drove through a blizzard to North Lake Tahoe and the some of our tire chains broke causing them to repeatedly slap the sides of our car and dinging the paint off. But we both agreed we'd rather go somewhere really nice for our honeymoon than blow a lot of money on a wedding, which we did. In May that year of 1977 we went to Maui and it was great.

There have been many great anniversaries, and like I said, most of them were traveling. One in particular comes to mind because we used to go to Europe every year in March and were often there on our anniversary. The one that comes to mind was the year that the comet Hale Bopp was visible. We were actually flying on our way to Paris on our annivesary. Late in the night when most people were sleeping but we were celebrating with champagne the pilot announced for anyone sitting on the left side of the aircraft, which we were, that Hale Bopp was visible. I raised the window blind and there it was, right smack in the middle of my window clear as a bell. I couldn't believe it. It was amazing. We both gazed at Hale Bopp and drank champagne and wondered if it gets any better than this.

Throughout that particular trip through France which included one of our favorite cities, Carcassonne, in the Midi-Pyrenees, and Sarlat, in the Dordogne as well as Angers in the Loire Valley, we saw Hale Bopp very clearly every night. In Carcassonne, which is an ancient walled city pre-dating the Romans, which has a Roman wall with a moat area surrounded by a later Medieval wall on the outside, on a hill near the pyrenees mountains, we walked outside the walls one evening past the vineyards to look back on the city which is illuminated at night. It was all golden and stunning with the vermillion purple sky in the background and right over it shown Hale Bopp. What a spectacular site streaking over the sky. John managed to film it for a split second before our camcorder decided it couldn't focus on something so far away but what he got showed the tale and everything. It was very cool.

Later on our trip in the Dordogne, we had a loft room in the ancient city of Sarlat right on the main place. At the end of our room was a little window overlooking the place. That day we had bought a nice bottle of wine and some pate and bread and pulled our chairs up to the window to gaze out on the city and enjoy the wine and food. What amazed us was that perfectly centered in the window was Hale Bopp. It looked ethereal.

Towards the end of that visit we were in the Loire Valley famous for the great chateaux in the city of Angers which is also famous for it's great chateau as well as containing the greatest and largest tapestry in Europe, not to mention some really nice wine of the region. Our hotel was across the street from the chateau which we toured in the afternoon and also saw the great tapestry which extends from wall to wall all the way around a quite large room. The colors are still brilliant and it tells a story but the tapestry had been stolen during the revolution and cut in pieces which were sold all over France. Later they started finding pieces of it and sewed it back together. It's amazing to see something of this magnatude. The chateau itself is quite old predating most chateaus as it was built for defensive purposes and had once had 4 major towers, not cut down by an entire story. It's quite lovely though and conveniently right in the middle of Angers across the street also from several winery shops where tastes are offered.

We were sitting in our hotel room looking out our window when we noticed Hale Bopp sitting directly over the Chateau D'Angers. It was so spectacular that we left and went across the street for a better view. Lots of people were out and about as usual but they couldn't find Hale Bopp so John had to point it out to them. Eventually we had quite a good crowd all staring up at the sky, which was deep purple, almost black, but the brilliant greens of the moat in front of us plus the brilliance of Hale Bopp in the sky made it very colorful.

There were other places were we witnessed Hale Bopp on that trip. In fact, we saw it every single night but these stand out in my memory as something truly special. Something that doesn't happen every day. In fact, it only comes something like every 70 years so I know we won't be around for the next one. But I'm sure glad we were for the last one.

I hope that everyone will have a chance at least once in their lifetime to have such an experience and to share it with someone special who appreciates it as much as you do. That has been my greatest luck!

Bon Nuit