G.B. TRAVELOG: The plea for input went out to all via some postcards and some E-Mail. Fortunately, some of you guys respond and send NEWS!! Yay, and many thanks . . .

AL BIRKELBACH and best girl, Sally, always come to my rescue with, at least, a few comments. Al writes:

    Dear Pat,
    Got your e-mail pleading (see?) for exciting and astounding news. Very sorry, we have nothing like that to report. All is well with Sally and me except for the usual problems which afflict many of us "elderly" folks. I'm going in for hip surgery after Easter (third time). We try to enjoy each day and are thankful we are still able to get around.
    We are looking forward to a family reunion in Colorado in July to celebrate our 55th wedding anniversary. Expect to have all of our children, grandchildren, and miscellaneous others join at the party in the mountains.
    Sally and I had dinner with ROGER AND SHIRLEY ROSE a couple of weeks ago. They are doing great. It was ROG who set me up on a blind date with Sally . . . and we are still good friends.
    Mae HERSTOCK (BILL's widow) and daughter, Laura, visited us for a week in January. Mae is doing fine. She is a very talented artist.
    Until the war situation calms down, we are staying close to the USA. Our youngest daughter just returned from 3 weeks in Egypt where she visited friends, and did some business. She reports that things were calm in Cairo. We are glad to have her home.
    We are praying that this war will be over quickly and with minimal casualties. We are not very enthusiastic about it. We are afraid we are opening up a big can of worms.
    All the best. One of these days, we will come to Balboa Island.
    AL AND SALLY BIRKELBACH

TOM JENSEN, the "traveler" snail-mailed some notes on his latest trips. I had sent him one of the postcards with the plea, and he too is always ready to comply!
Tom says:

    Pat, Got your card; we were in Puerto Rico 3/1 to 3/15 absorbing beautiful beach and temps: hi 70s to 80s. (after Antarctica)
    Enclosed is a picture taken when we landed on Antarctica. Ship's name was Marco Polo. (Ed note: he also sent a picture of some elephant seals and their friends the Waddell and Fur seals, but I couldn't get a good copy). The trip was 1/14 to 2/2.
    We flew from Newark to Miami to Buenos Aires to Ushuaira, Argentina, the most southern city in the world, to pick up our ship. 1000 miles to the Antarctica coast. (South Pole is another 1000 miles.)
    Our first stop was S. Georgia Island (Falklands). A location for processing whale oil in the 19th and 20th centuries. Had a population of over 1000 at that time . . . now has 16 people & a small cemetery where [Sir Ernest] Shackleton, the English Explorer, is buried. Saw many icebergs, penguins, birds, etc.
    We are going to England late April, to see friends we knew in Saudi Arabia!
    PS: Dark glasses are for glare from ice packs.
    Love, Tom and Mary
     

Well, since we are on the TRAVEL portion of this issue, we have some more pals who have been hither and yon, and are reporting in!! Thank goodness. Now that we are all "senior citizens" it seems much of our time is spent going someplace besides to the Supermarket.
Ben and I go to the Southern California Desert for much of the winter months, and while there we see BOB HILB and Jane, and always our R V travel Couple, AL OSTERLING and Cece. Also there is DARYL JAMES, who lives on the desert all year long . . . actually ABOVE it, on the mountain.
Here are "The Desert Rats" at Angelo's Restaurant, Palm Desert, CA, March 2003. L to R: Bob Hilb, Daryl James, The Editor, Al Osterling, Ben L., and Jane Hilb. (Cece Osterling took the picture.)

A particularly wonderful group of Ever Faithfuls! It ain't Antarctica or Greece, but lots of fun anyway.

Speaking of Greece, JIM AND FRAN (PROCTOR) LOVE who were away as we were looking for the $$ report last fall . . . have consented to give us a run-down of . . .

A MINI TOUR WITH THE LOVES

    Last summer we got a mailing from Tauck World Discovery, our favorite tour group, that there was a "two for one" 7-night cruise in the Greek Isles in October . . .Who could pass that up? So, on October 19 off we went.
    Without going into a lot of detail, we sailed out of Piraeus (near Athens) and on successive days visited Mykonos/Delos, Santorini, Rhodes; then Bodrum, Kusadasi, Ephesus and Istanbul in Turkey before our magical eight days were over. Perfect weather in the mid to upper seventies, cloudless skies, moonlit nights. Wow, wow!
    The ship that we were on was a four masted schooner, and we were under sail about 90 per cent of the time. It had a capacity of 150, but there were only 85 or so passengers with a crew of 90. Talk about service!
    Lasting impressions are the blazing whiteness of all the buildings (white-washed every spring) and the bright blue roofs and trim, even though most of the buildings were hundreds of years old, the craftsmanship we saw in the ruins dating back to the BC era, and the restoration efforts going on at Ephesus, which was probably the highlight of our trip. Only about one-third of the original city has been 'un-earthed', but it was quite a feeling to think that 2000 years ago, Paul walked and preached there. In his day it was a port. Now it is 20-25 kilometers from the sea.

Mykonos on the left, and Ephesus on the right

    Not too long after we got home, a friend of Fran's asked us to join them on a December Trip they were leading to Branson, Mo. for the annual Christmas shows. Why not? So off we went. Eleven shows in five days. It was a blast! We saw the Rockettes, the Osmond Brothers, Yakov Smirnoff, the Hughes Brothers and Shoji Tabuchi. Our suggestion: Spend a week and have a ball!

    In February, after the GB Laughlin Reunion, we headed to Kailua, Oahu for a Fran Proctor Family reunion (her direct descendants). Was the weather better than Greece? Call it a tie. The house we had was perfect for Fran's progeny, a block from the beach. And if one didn't like the beach, there was our own salt water pool. We did a lot of things but mostly just 'hung out'.
    The only thing that softens leaving the beaches of Oahu is that the weather in San Jose isn't too bad either.

    JIM AND FRAN LOVE

(Ed. Note: Am I dreaming, or do the LOVES spend a lot of time having FUN??)

 
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