2007 July 23-26: Dan and Cary Visit Ripon

Brother and sister-in-law, Dan and Cary, were in Milwaukee for a big reunion of the Elks Club Band, in which Cary played sax during late high school and college years. Following the reunion they joined us in Ripon for four days. It just happened to be the week of the annual EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) convention, so we spent a day in Oshkosh seeing all kinds of interesting planes and meeting folks that come faithfully every year to this huge event. During the last week in July, Oshkosh becomes the busiest airport in the world! The area hotels and the dorms at UW-Oshkosh and Ripon College are always full. People rent their homes and take in borders. And then there are the hundreds of campers. That could be an RV, a tent, or a pop-up pitched beside an airplane in an open field among hundreds of others. This was the first time Bill and I have actually paid admission and attended the event, though we participate in a sense each year because the landing pattern includes the water tower on the hill behind our house. It's so good to have visitors from out of town so we can see the local sights ourselves. Here's the C5A cargo plane just after it landed. The big planes were opened for visitors to go inside.

On Wednesday we went to the Horicon Marsh, one of the largest wetland preserves in the country. From Blue Heron Landing we took a guided pontoon boat tour and saw turtles, a mink, many great blue herons, cormorants, a muskrat swimming with a lily pad in its mouth, gulls, green herons, and all sorts of smaller birds.

Thursday we spent the day in Ripon, visiting the Little White Schoolhouse that was the birthplace of the Republican Party, the Ripon Historical Society, Ripon College, and the walking/driving tour of the residences in the National Historic District. Bill has been very involved in the restoration of the Little White Schoolhouse and we both spend a lot of volunteer hours on Historical Society work.

Dan and Cary left Thursday afternoon in order to eat at Cary's high school favorite restaurant in Milwaukee, Mama Mia's. Cary's memories of Mama's butter-soaked garlic bread sticks have become larger than life. Cary phoned, with butter dripping down her arm, to say that the bread sticks continue to live up to the fantasy. The flight back to Dan and Cary's summer home in Colorado was early Friday morning.

2007 July 14-21: Beaver Creek with Woolleys and Blacks

How we appreciate an easy two-day trip from Wisconsin to Colorado...no more counting vacation days and driving all night. Retirement does have its benefits. This week was a true Rocky Mountain High, spent with good friends from my CU days, Mimi and Virg Black. We are now related by way of the marriage of their son, Eric, and our daughter, Jennifer. The days were warm but not hot and the nights were cool. The few thundershowers in the afternoons didn't interfere with our fun as we walked and hiked in Beaver Creek, Vail, and Leadville.

We hosted a reunion for CU friends in the Denver area. The picture shows Marilu Duty, Donna Conroy, Mary Alice McDougal, Nancye Nelson, Joni Snodgrass, Jean Woolley, and Mimi Black. Bill Woolley, Virg Black, Don Snodgrass, and Tom McDougal were there, too.

We had a "cousins' night" where we introduced our cousins, Michelle, Brent, and Jasper, to Blacks' cousins, Brad, Cary, and Emma. It turns out they are practically neighbors in Eagle! From the picture you can see that Jasper and Emma became instant friends. We enjoyed seeing homes in the mountain community of Cordillera that architect Brent designed and custom homes under construction at the Village Walk in Beaver Creek for which Brad is a project manager.

Virg and I went wild playing with our digital cameras, while Mimi hunted wild flowers for us to photograph.


Since we have taken lifts often as skiers, the rides on the gondola at Vail and chair lift at Beaver Creek were a chance for Bill, Virg, and me to enjoy the wonderful scenery. For Mimi, who hasn't skied since the T-bar days of college and who isn't fond of heights, the rides were a major accomplishment. It took a lot of courage to laugh off the fear, make jokes, have fun, and come back for a second trip.