Trip to Dallas and Colorado
September 30 to October 11, 2006

At the end of September we made a brief visit to Dallas, for a bit of work and catching up on friends, followed by about a week in the Denver Colorado area to visit with more friends, some of whom we had not seen in nearly two decades. Our objective in Dallas was to clear out items that had been in storage for 7 years, since we came to Chile, in order to reduce warehouse costs to OxyChem and to get a head-start on eliminating items we knew we would never again need. We came on a weekend, so we could see some friends, before our work began on Monday. Paul and Dee were our first friendship stop.
		Paul and Dee in Dallas (Erica's wedding picture on wall)

We got to meet the newest member of the family, Damon, who married Paul and Dee's daughter Erica about 3 years ago.  Son Paul joined us later that evening at dinner.

Sunday was packed full of fun visits. We went with Steve and Anna to their club for breakfast with Vickie and later saw her husband Mike and their son Paul (upper left) who were playing tennis while we brunched. We then took a mid-day walk through a nature preserve with Anna, Steve and his daughter Haley (lower left). We ended the day with a dinner at Bob and Diane's house (lower right), enjoying a home-made Italian meal.

Monday we started at sunrise, heading to the warehouse to sort all items into two piles: "auction" and "store."

We had six giant crates with about 8,000 pounds of goods that we had to go through. In two days we opened, inspected, and decided what to do with over a thousand individual items. Aside from auction or storage, some things went to trash (in the box at the left) and some went to friends, like the dishes below that helped Vickie set up Paul in his new apartment.

Besides these old dishes and Tupperware, we also ran across some memorabilia, such as Margy's artwork from her High School days. Sometimes we had tough decisions to make about what to keep and what to throw out.

Tuesday night, after finishing the project, we celebrated by dining out at "Po' Melvins" for fun family style Texas food with Bert and Diane. Back at the hotel "Monkey Face" awaited us.

After dinner we headed to Bert and Diane's house where Bert amazed us with his artistry and skill with building furniture and special accents around the house. His garage had a well organized and equipped wood shop where Bert created wonders with wood. He recreated the style of the fireplace around the windows. In their kitchen we enjoyed sitting around the beautiful table he created by hand.

Our last day in Dallas, Wednesday, we headed to the corporate office building to see several friends that we had known for over 25 years with the company, and some we had never met before, such as the corporate medical director who removed some stitches from Artie's ankle after minor surgery he had in Santiago prior to our trip. Matthew, medical director, and Donna, occupational health nurse, took good care of Artie.

After visiting briefly with many friends on the various floors of the office building, the day ended nicely with a lunch together with Artie's boss, Dennis, and the HR Manager, Angie, who handles international human relations issues with Artie. From lunch we headed directly to the Dallas airport and took a plane to Colorado Springs.

This is the view from the deck of Terri and Tom's house on a hillside in Colorado Springs, south of Denver.

Their neighborhood has lots of wild deer roaming the streets, enjoying snacks of plants, flowers and shrubs!

		The views from their porch, or those from our car window, always were impressive. Great expanses, majestic mountains, and clear skies were wonderful to see everywhere.

Terri sent the picture of the Northern Harrier Hawk on her deck rail ten days after we returned to Chile. We did some local sightseeing with Tom and Terri, including this visit to mansion built by a railroad baron that has since become a conference center. We had a great day there to walk and relax.
Yes, we did coordinate our dress-code in red for the day!

While staying with Terri and Tom, we took a brief afternoon drive over to Black Forest Colorado to visit Artie's Brooklyn Tech High School friend, and later college roommate, Roger, and his wife Arlene. Roger proudly shows his pictures of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers World Championship baseball team (above). Roger is a retired architect, land developer and house builder. You can see the beautiful outdoor deck and relaxation center he built for himself! It had been 18 years since we last saw Roger and Arlene, but they both looked well and about the same as last time. It must be the fresh outdoor air of Colorado! We headed back to Tom and Terri's house and then went out for more sightseeing.

As dusk approached, we took a quick drive through the Garden of the Gods with Tom and Terri. It is an impressive place with bold rock formations.

Back to the neighborhood to see the local deer one more time, and then off to the airport to say farewell for now to dear friends. This was a great reunion for friends from Junior High School who are friends for life.

		Next stop: Denver. We visited with Margy's niece, Mary, who recently relocated to Denver as an IRS special agent and forensic accountant. She just bought this new townhouse unit.

We had a good time just hanging out together, catching up on family and events, looking at photos, and going out to eat. Artie stuffed himself on a great milk shake, and then went on for seconds! We worked off the calories the next day helping Mary set up her apartment by hanging pictures on the walls.

		Back from the store with new fire extinguishers, and other items for the house, Artie enjoyed shuffling his feet through the autumn leaves. Margy and Mary proudly stood alongside the poster that was hung in the dining room area, showing Daddy figuring his IRS deductions with the 5th child, Margy, now in the family.

A neighborhood squirrel looked on as Margy posed for us in her official IRS Police "swat" uniform. She's got a gold badge and a gun as part of her work clothes while doing her job to catch the bad guys.

		Mary joined us to meet up with Kristin for brunch, after she and her boyfriend, Jason completed a walk for cancer with his grandparents. After chatting at the restaurant, we said good-bye to Mary and we headed to our next stop: Boulder Colorado. Kristin and Jason took us to the area around the University, where we enjoyed street sculpture, flowers, and a couple of nice restaurants during our couple of days with them.

		Over the next couple of days Artie and they carved out time to do some banjo practice. Both Kristin and Jason wanted to get some tips from Artie, taking advantage of the visit to get lessons whenever there was a spare moment. Kristin even brought out her fiddle, and she and Artie played a duet together. Relaxing with their bunny, Enyay (pronounced like the Spanish letter Ñ), chatting, laughing, and pickin' the ol' banjo, we all had a fun time together.

We went to have lunch at the cafe where Kristin works part time.

We went out to a special dinner in Longmont CO with Syracuse University friends, Dennis and Cari, whose daughter, Kristin, had just moved there with her husband Kevin. Den and Cari were there on vacation, and we timed our trip so we could all get together in Colorado. It was nice to get to see this other Kristin and her husband in their new home and for the two Kristins, both from Maryland, to finally meet each other.

Our last stop was in Centennial with Eleanor and Hal. It was hard to believe that it had been 18 years since we had last seen them. None of us had changed. Well, not much. We enjoyed taking a nature walk with them.

		Their youngest, Meg, now 20, had certainly changed more than we had in 18 years!
		Before heading to the airport, we even squeezed in some time to help Hal and Eleanor select a new computer.
In 12 days we managed to see at least 30 wonderful people and to spend quality time with most of them. It was a great vacation!
Back to Margy and Artie's homepage