The bicycling life (with my dog): The Adventure of staying in one place -- sort of

I think I've pretty much established that I don't enjoy staying still for too long. In fact, I wonder if I've always been this person deep down and just curtailed my travel instinct in favor of norms. Anyway, since the last entry, Abby and Adam got married in Cape Vincent, NY.

I left to drive there on June 25, Sunday. This was kind of the nature of the week, with occasional peeks at the sun:

I spent Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights at Abby & Adam's with a drive up to Hammond, NY, on Tuesday, to look at the flowers that would be cut the next day. And it rained, and it rained. This is from the Primrose Hill Flower Farm.

The ones in the bucket had been cut for another wedding, but I took a picture, anyway, to give myself and Abby an idea of what was available. The proprietor had to go into Alexandria Bay (called "Alex Bay" by the locals) on Thursday morning to cross to an island for a wedding, so she met me at the Price Chopper parking lot to deliver the goods. Two buckets of a variety of flowers and beautiful, leafy plants for $100. I realized, after looking over what she had, that I was going to need some fuller, heftier flowers, and more white, to make things look the way we wanted. That meant going to Watertown on Thursday morning to get some mums, carnations, and daisies, all in white.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The trip to see the flowers at the flower farm was Tuesday. I returned to Cortland, where Archie and Jake worked on their relationship.

Archie adores Jake. I think Jake tolerates Archie as an irritating little brother. I also think that Jake will be very relieved the next time we visit that Archie has been neutered. We'll see.

On Wednesday, Abby and I picked up Alice and David from the airport in Syracuse while Adam did a few things on his own, including polishing his final version of his vows. I didn't stay too long with the kids after we got back to the house, as I was expected in Clayton to get my nails done, while Adam's mom, Veronica, got some make-up tips from the same beautician. Even though the place where I was to stay on Wednesday night was far north, I met Veronica in Cape Vincent so I could see the wedding venue, and followed her into Clayton. We had lunch at this great place right on the river. It was my first of three visits to the place. It was convenient and good quality. There were probably lots of other good places, but once we'd found this one, it was just easy. It's called Bella's, in case you ever get there.

Veronica and I sent this to Abby and Adam from the deck of Bella's.

I spent Wednesday night at a very cute little Airbnb cabin quite a ways north of Clayton/CapeVincent, with Annie and her kids, Ruby and Hamish, who had come to attend the wedding and to help me with the flowers. I don't know what I would have done without them. The hardest thing -- for me, at least -- about making bouquets, corsages, and boutonnieres, is holding the flowers in the right spot while wrapping the florists' tape around the stems. Because of Annie and Ruby, I could put the flowers together creatively, and then one of them would hold them in place while I wrapped the tape. I guess if I were going to do this as a regular thing, I'd have to learn the coordination myself. As it was, they were lifesavers!

Annie holding the first version of the bridal bouquet. We ended up taking the blue flowers out and rearranging it a bit. Below is the final version.

Ruby holding the finished bridal bouquet.

And at its best, of course, in Abby's hand.

The bridesmaid bouquets were all different, and somewhat smaller. The corsages and boutonnieres were also quite different. Because they were wild flowers, we were lucky they lasted through pictures. After that, most people took them off because they were wilting so badly. Wild flowers just aren't bred to stay looking pretty for a long time without water, as carnations and others are.

Bridesmaid bouquets.

Thursday afternoon was the rehearsal, followed by a rehearsal dinner, and then a visit to the Peterson family's lodging at an old nunnery. Abby found really cool shades for her bridesmaids.

Left to right: Isabel Flikkema, Marlee Guilford, and Alice Peterson, bridesmaids!

Thursday night, I stayed at the Wooden Boat Inn in Clayton with the rest of the women from the wedding party. Friday morning, in spite of continuing rain, I drove back to the cabin where Annie and Ruby and I completed our corsages and boutonnieres and placed them in Styrofoam coolers with ice, as recommended by our flower lady. Archie had been staying with Annie and family, since he wasn't allowed at the Wooden Boat Inn.

This was how a very happy Archie looked the morning of the wedding, after romping around the cabin in the rain and mud.

Following my advice (or maybe just on his own wisdom), Adam had set up the chairs on the lawn outside of the tent, even though it continued to rain. We believed that we would have sunshine for the wedding, and so we did. About 20 minutes before the ceremony was to begin, the sun came out. The weather was lovely and stayed that way until around midnight, when it began to rain again. The following, individually captioned, photos are from the afternoon of the wedding.

Archie cleaned up nicely for the wedding itself, and wore his bow tie with patience.

The Morrisons joined us from Grand Rapids. It was great to have them!

David, Alice, and Adam.

Abby put together some "wedding" hula hoops, decorated in white and silver. A number of Petersons were very good at this!

My brothers and my dad, talking and overlooking the St Lawrence.

And, nearby, Carol, Colleen, Mom (Carol), Abby, Alice & David. I'm not sure who's behind Mom. Probably Torri.

Seemed like most people thought ahead and brought a change of clothes. I didn't. Here's Adam, looking a lot more comfortable, and carrying one of the flower girls, Meadow.