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In 1965, Lynn Rich met her future husband. But she didn't pick him up.

Her mother did.

Chuck Abbott, an instrumentation engineer, had come to Steamboat Springs to work on boiler designs at Hayden Station. His Denver-based employer had sent Chuck and his co-workers in just one car, which the company's senior engineer took home to Denver each weekend. Although the lack of transit in rural Steamboat Springs irritated Chuck - "When I arrived and there was no transportation, I was pretty peeved," he said recently - one day he gamely threw his skis over his shoulder and walked to Mount Werner, a fledgling resort that, in those days, offered only the Christie lift.

Lynn was the daughter of Ann Rich, who was driving along that day and saw Chuck Abbott carrying all his gear. She offered him a ride. In the car, Chuck aired a few grievances about Steamboat. As the secretary of the local Chamber of Commerce, Ann Rich couldn't let such sentiments lie.

So she told Chuck Abbott that her daughter would pick him up and take him to the mountain tomorrow.

Lynn picked him up at the Waffle Shack, now The Shack Cafe on Lincoln Avenue.

Their lives changed between downtown and the mountain.

"That was in February, we were engaged by March and married in August," Lynn Abbott said.

Forty-three years later the couple lives in their home on Park Avenue, next to the stone house where Lynn grew up. They returned to Steamboat in 1996, after living in locations including Israel, Utah, Aspen, Hawaii and Phoenix. Lynn is a leading member of the Routt County Democratic Party. Chuck is retired but still works with longtime customers - and loves the town he once thought too small.

"It's a place you can go to and not be bombarded with the rest of the world and still have all the amenities you want," he said.