[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 142 (Tuesday, September 6, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4424-S4425]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          TRIBUTE TO CAROLINE CORNELL AND DANIEL PATRICK LOGAN

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I want to take a moment to highlight a 
truly feel good story straight out of my home State of Vermont, a story 
of how middle school friends and ski buddies from southern Vermont 
reconnected and fell in love after life took them mostly separate ways.
  Caroline Cornell and Daniel Patrick Logan grew up in southern Vermont 
and were close, but platonic, friends while attending middle school and 
Burr and Burton Academy in Manchester, VT. After graduation, they 
remained in contact, but traveled transiently and independently. Their 
individual journeys took them across the world, from the Lost Coast of 
California to Thailand, Florida, and the Finger Lakes of New York. 
Their two separate, but eventually corresponding, life journeys 
involved transient living, Grateful Dead tribute bands, odd jobs, 
romance, heartbreak, and so much more. In retrospect, it may have been 
inevitable that time would turn these two lifelong friends into 
companions. And finally, in June of this year, they became husband and 
wife.
  Caroline and Daniel have traveled far and wide, but like so many 
others before them, their love for each other, and our small, beautiful 
State, has brought them home to Vermont, the same place where their 
friendship began almost 20 years ago. Caroline and Daniel's story of 
music, travel, love, and fate was profiled in a July 1, 2022, article 
published in the New York Times. I ask unanimous consent that

[[Page S4425]]

the article titled ``While Following Grateful Dead Tribute Bands, a 
Romantic Turn'' be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From The New York Times, July 1, 2022]

      While Following Grateful Dead Tribute Bands, a Romantic Turn

                            (By Nina Reyes)

       Caroline Cornell and Daniel Patrick Logan weren't 
     technically off the grid when they found romance on the Lost 
     Coast of Northern California, the state's most remote 
     oceanfront area, in the summer of 2014. But the routes each 
     had taken to get there could definitely be described as off 
     the beaten path.
       The two first met in middle school in southern Vermont, and 
     later attended the same high school, Burr and Burton Academy, 
     in Manchester, Vt. As teenagers they ran in the same circle 
     of friends, with whom they would ski and snowboard.
       Mr. Logan, 32, said that although there was never an 
     acknowledged attraction between them back then, Ms. Cornell, 
     31, was a benchmark. ``She was one of those people I would 
     compare other girls to,'' he said. ``I would say, That girl's 
     no Caroline, but that's OK.''
       Ms. Cornell saw Mr. Logan as her best friend. ``He's just 
     really sweet and didn't judge, always made you laugh,'' she 
     said.
       When he graduated from high school, in 2007, Mr. Logan went 
     to study massage in Nevada City, Calif. Following her 
     graduation, in 2008, Ms. Cornell and a group of their mutual 
     friends soon began traveling across the country to attend 
     concerts by bands reimagining the Grateful Dead. ``That's 
     what I did instead of college,'' Ms. Cornell said. Mr. Logan 
     would often meet up with them at shows.
       Both spent the next 10 years living transiently. When they 
     weren't traveling, Ms. Cornell worked as a bartender and at 
     other odd jobs, sometimes staying with her parents and 
     grandparents at their homes in Key West, Fla., while Mr. 
     Logan worked at a marijuana farm in Honeydew, Calif., which 
     is on the Lost Coast. He also continued to study massage, in 
     Thailand and in the Finger Lakes region of New York.
       In July 2014, Ms. Cornell, who had remained in regular 
     contact with Mr. Logan, took a seasonal job at the farm where 
     he was working. Both had recently become single, and they 
     commiserated over the end of their relatively long 
     relationships. One night, at the only bar in the town, they 
     drank Don Julio 1942 tequila for almost 12 hours. Yet both 
     remember what happened next with absolute clarity.
       ``We had our first kiss in the parking lot, and we just let 
     it happen,'' Ms. Cornell said. ``I feel like I was already in 
     love with him because he was my best friend.''
       Said Mr. Logan, ``It wasn't until I kissed her that I 
     realized I was going to kiss her.''
       Though their relationship remained casual for a few months, 
     each knew it was in a new phase. ``There's really no going 
     back from this,'' Mr. Logan recalled thinking.
       When her seasonal gig concluded that September, she left 
     while he remained on the Lost Coast. ``We talked almost every 
     day on the phone, but I had to drive a four-wheeler to the 
     top of the hill'' to call her, he said.
       ``We were dating even if it wasn't official,'' Mr. Logan 
     added. ``We said, `It is what it is. We're not going to ask 
     questions.' ''
       The following year, after spending time with Ms. Cornell at 
     her family's place in Key West, he actually did have a 
     question. In March 2015, Mr. Logan called her and asked Ms. 
     Cornell if she was going to be his girlfriend.
       Saying no, Ms. Cornell said, risked her losing ``the best 
     guy forever.'' So she said yes. ``But if I'm going to do 
     this,'' she recalled thinking, ``I'm going to marry this 
     guy.'' Mr. Logan proposed on Valentine's Day in 2021, while 
     the two were again in Key West. By then they had already 
     bought a property together and were building a home in 
     Rawsonville, Vt., near where both had grown up. Ms. Cornell 
     is now a floral designer in Manchester. Mr. Logan is a 
     licensed massage therapist and also works at the Red Fox Inn, 
     in Bondville, Vt., which his parents have owned and operated 
     since 1984.
       On June 17, the couple were married at his parents' inn 
     before 300 guests. Kate Logan, the groom's elder sister, 
     officiated after receiving authorization from Vermont's 
     secretary of state.
       The ceremony was part of a four-day celebration, which 
     included several events that together featured a lineup of no 
     fewer than five bands. Those performances were an opening act 
     of sorts for the groom and the bride, who took his surname. 
     After the wedding, they again hit the road for a month of 
     following even more live music events.

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