Winter Solstice, 2015 (December 22nd, our 8th Anniversary!) – The Broderson-Cotter Chronicles, 8th Edition! (by Tom Cotter)

2015 was another busy year. In April, we finished our odyssey chairing the Rocky Mountain Depression Glass Society Array of Colors Show and Sale. It was the last RMDGS-sponsored event. We got through it, with great dealers and merchandise and a goodly turnout of shoppers. And we met new friends/fellow-Coloradans Millie and Roger Loucks, who had recently retired from New Jersey to Grand Junction. They were kind enough to help our long-time buddy Mike Horine at the show, and we had a Cambridge collectors dinner in Castle Rock with them, Tom McLean and Don Spencer, Jeannie and Freeman Moore, Sandy Bridwell-Walker, Linda and David Adams, and some dude named David Ray, a bigwig with NCC. With friends we visited Kirkland Museum of Fine & Decorative Art several times in spring and summer to bask in the wonders of one of the most unique art collections in the U.S. Sometime in early May, Tom helped install a horse-themed sculpture display by Deborah Butterfield at the Denver Botanic Gardens;. Her extraordinary bronzes are based on models made from fallen wood, ultimately cast and carefully finished to capture the essence of the animals and the wood. All that really means is that Tom dug holes and cleaned up areas into which the sculptures were carefully placed to interact with their surroundings.

With a couple of weeks in early May to rest up, we Prius-ed to Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, touching down in a few states between. The focus of the trip was the wedding of Amisha Gadani and Ian Ingram in Mechanicsburg, PA. On the way, we visited Ohio with Cambridge glass friends Elaine and Jack Thompson in Akron, Sandy Bridwell-Walker, Bill, and cats in Newcomerstown, and Lynn Welker and Cindy Arent in Cambridge, with Sandy and Lynn performing personal tours of the NCC Museum. Just WOW. Oh, and a side trip to New Concord to Lynn’s all-too-tempting shop. Quickly on to Mechanicsburg, where the Hindu/Protestant wedding was a marvelous five-day event, hosted by proud parents Dr. Pravin and Bharti Gadani at various locations around Harrisburg, but primarily at their fabulous home in Mechanicsburg. Avani and Peter had significant roles throughout the celebration. We mingled with friends old and new for the entire time, grateful to be included in such a joyous occasion. After the wedding we headed to Virginia, stopping for lunch and wandering along the Chesapeake and Ohio at Williamsport, MD. Then off to dinner with a favorite friend, Pati Hann, in Winchester, VA, as Pati drove from Annadale to see us. Tuesday we gamboled along the Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park, amid luxurious greenery and significant humidity (at what point does humidity exceed 100%; drowning?). For Wednesday we drove to Weston, WV, to meet with Helen and Bob Jones at the Museum of American Glass. Another personalized museum tour, and a chance to meet Dean Six, well-known researcher and author on American glass history. By that evening we preyed upon another dear friend, Sara Sawyer, a former colleague of Tina’s at SIUE and now teaching at Glenville State University in, of all places, Glenville. WV. But we had to return to Colorado (the air was getting too thick to breathe), so we headed west, with a quick visit in St. Louis with Niqua and Michael. Our last night we accepted a long-standing offer from the Fralicks to stay in Kansas City, having dinner with them Saturday evening. Tina had not met Jaye before, as Eric has been doing glass shows in Colorado without her due to altitude issues. Our grand tour over, we arrived home Sunday, May 31, weary, but filled with new great memories. It’s cool to catch up with friends, and we certainly did all we could during this trip.

Throughout this year, Tina has kept very busy with Rocky Mountain Weaver’s Guild activities (board member ad infinitum?). Her June “break” entailed driving to Edwardsville, IL, then going with Marggy Grace and another friend to St. Paul, MN, and the Midwest Weavers’ Conference. Many more friends and much learning involved in these trips. While Tina was in St. Paul at workshops and hobnobbing, Sharon and B.R. came to Denver to see their local kin (including a day with Aibhie, Jenn, and Chad in Loveland) and a trip with David Carter to Rocky Mountain National Park with moose, elk, and other critter sightings. Then, Tom accompanied Sharon and Byron to the Rhodes family reunion in Weeping Water, NE, Father’s Day weekend. With all the rains this past spring, rivers west and east of Denver were in flood stage, particularly the Platte through Nebraska. The Rhodes family get-togethers are always delightful and a great opportunity for Tom to show his complete ineptitude at cribbage. Kenny and Marilyn Stratton were kind enough to drop Tom at the Omaha airport on their way to partying somewhere, and Tom caught a short flight to St. Louis to drive back with Tina from her weaver’s week. We managed to see friends and family in St. Louis, spending a busy day with Phoebe, Marko, Niqua, Michael, and cousin Lewis at the Saint Louis Science Center. If we don’t try to cram too much into a trip, it’s just not a trip!

By the second week of July, Sharon and Byron came back to Colorado for two weeks of mountain flower scenery and photography around Crested Butte and Ouray. We met them in Crested Butte for two nights, with a drive to Gothic and the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (recommended by Dr. Sawyer), then “zipping” over Schofield Pass for some amazing flowers and vistas along the West Maroon Pass Trail near the Crystal River. Returning to Mt. Crested Butte via appropriately-named Paradise Divide around Cinnamon Mountain, we met the obligatory afternoon thunderstorm/downpour coming down the Washington Gulch road.

Elaine and Jack Thompson of Akron did their own version of the ever-expanding road trip, stopping by mid-July on their way back to Ohio from Kansas City. Or something like that. We shared some chat-time with them and Tom McLean and Don Spencer in a flurry of Cambridge-itis. We did manage to take Elaine and Jack to aforementioned Kirkland Museum for an additional overdose of glass/pottery/art/design/etc.
A week later, we sidled down to Durango for camping and the biennial Intermountain Weavers Conference, where we both took workshops; Tina on rep weave (that’s short for ripsmatta, a Scandinavian warp-faced technique, taught by Rosalie Neilson) while Tom reprised a Navajo tapestry class with Lynda Teller Pete. Lynda and her sister Barbara Teller Ornelas are internationally renowned Two Grey Hills weavers, who share their love of Navajo heritage and art with their friends and students. While Lynda taught, husband Belvin and sister Barbara had a booth at the Conference market. Somewhere in there we managed a visit with Cherie and Joe Pitman at their digs west of Hesperus. Fold up the tent, back home.

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The main event of August (heck, the year!) was the birth of granddaughter Miranda Amor Wilson August 20 in St. Louis, with parents Niqua and Michael adding to their family. By mid-September, we traveled to St. Louis to meet Miranda and for a Blazing Shuttles weaving workshop for Tina (is there a pattern here?). We delivered an Explorer-load of furniture and fixtures to their digs in Maplewood, and Tom helped with a few things around the Clark-Wilson household. Fun for all and all for fun!

Long-time friends Jodi and Mark Uthe inaugurated the new Front Range Glass Show and Sale in Loveland the first weekend in October, so we helped, joining others from the RMDGS at an information booth and several display tables. For a longtime glass collector like Tom, we think they’ll just pack his ashes in a glass urn and sell it to some unwary person when that time comes. Then, as the Deborah Butterfield exhibit at the Botanic Gardens ended in October, Tom was there with shovel and wheelbarrow in hand for a couple of days cleaning up after the horses (the de-install).

Needing some “down time” later in October, we packed up the trailer and Lady Blue for a visit to Moab, UT. For our first visit to the area in a 4-wheel drive vehicle, we spent several days puttering along dirt/rock roads around Canyonlands and Arches NPs. Yeah, Tom got the Explorer stuck in some mud along Shafer Trail, but Tina patiently explained a well-thought-out solution that worked quite nicely, thank you. All exposed on Facebook. Rains just before our arrival flooded the road to Delicate Arch, so we visited some places off the paved roads, including Eye of the Whale, Balcony, and Picture Frame Arches, Gemini (natural) Bridges, Thelma and Louise Overlook (see the end of the movie), and an amazing panorama from the Anticline Overlook into Canyonlands. That latter Overlook found us gazing hundreds of feet down on a mesa that had towered over us when we drove to Hurrah Pass earlier in the day. Formerly mentioned Millie and Roger Loucks (paragraph 1) asked us to stop our next time through Grand Junction, so we did on our drive back from Moab. They generously treated us to a delightful lunch as well as cases and cases of gorgeous glass (viewing only, no souvenirs).

Ah, November, starting with a couple of days at DBG for a new Chihuly exhibit (temporary, fun, colorful!). Peace and quiet, sinusitis for Tina, bronchitis for Tom. R&R (remembering and [w]riting this letter?). Thanksgiving at the Caley abode with Aibhie, Jenn, Chad, Eric, Veronia, and Nalisha. Visited Sedona and New Mexico in mid-December. Always nice to search for red rocks and sun when the days are short. Squeezed in a short visit with Byron and Sharon in Phoenix, and Don and Tom in Mesa.

You can see some selected pictures from our 2015 adventures by clicking on Photos 2015 in the links above. Click on each photo to see a larger image, since Tina posts mostly thumbnail images.