Merry Christmas

As this letter is being written we are enjoying the Thanksgiving week at the Los Abrigados Resort in Sedona. The resort at this time of the year is decorated with holiday lights and displays for their Red Rock Fantasy. Margaret had a few days of vacation left for the year and I was in need of a break from my studies. Thanksgiving Day we drove to the Grand Canyon and after walking about three miles along the south rim we had dinner at the El Tovar Hotel where they serve between 1,100 and 1,400 people on Thanksgiving Day. Black Friday we took a Pink Jeep Scenic Rim tour 2,000 feet to the top of the Mogollon Rim. We had an interesting tour guide who was originally from Australia. While we were in Sedona we went to the airport for lunch. It was the second time this year that we did so. The first time was in January under different circumstances. On MLK Day we landed in Sedona following a flight over Meteor Crater near Winslow. We saw more of Meteor Crater from the air than we had when we visited it on the ground on a very windy day in December. I purchased the flight from Jerry Rovey, who farms near Buckeye, on his Cessna Sky Wagon 170 through a silent auction at the UA College of Agriculture’s “Dean’s Almost World Famous Burrito Breakfast” last November. The plane ride, on which we invited Margaret’s friend Artie Longoria, was the first of several adventures during the year.

Work
Margaret started working for ATI last year where she continues to train teachers on ATI’s products. Besides working in Arizona her travels this year have taken her to California, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Florida. I continue to work for H&R Block and this year in the off season I have been studying for the Enrolled Agent exams with the IRS. I have passed two of the three tests at this point in time and am hoping to complete the last one before Christmas.

Margaret started volunteering for Literacy Volunteers of Tucson (LVT) this Fall. The organization’s mission is to educate non-English speakers to speak and read English. Margaret helps them with the computer software that supports this mission. I am still involved as Treasurer of the Lutheran Campus Ministry (LCM) and serve on the Board. Support to LCM is suffering along with others due to these economic times. This Fall I have also volunteered to help remove Giant Reedgrass Arundo donax which is invading the banks of Sabino Creek.

Travel
Our biggest adventure of the year came in May when we visited Yellowstone Park. Our first stop on 1,100 mile trek to Yellowstone was at Bryce Canyon, Utah. It is a marvelous place with the same road leading in and out of the canyon at a higher elevation than most of the vistas including Natural Bridge which is located 8,627 feet above sea level.

Our second major stop was at Salt Lake City where we visited Temple Square and the Utah State Capitol building. That building has recently undergone a major renovation which placed the whole building on what could be described as shock absorbers in order to withstand an earthquake. SLC is located on a major fault. Another unique feature of the capitol building is that there is no wood incorporated into the structure. All the doors appear to be wood, but they are actually metal. The doors are treated with a seven-step process to make them look like wood. All this was done for fire protection.

We had a nice tour of Temple Square the 35-acre oasis in downtown SLC that is the world headquarters for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. While there we attended a noon organ concert in the Tabernacle. Visitation inside the Temple is not allowed, however, we were able to see some of the activity from outside the fenced area. We were there on Friday and there were a lot of weddings being performed that day in the wedding rooms inside the Temple.

The next day it was on to Yellowstone. We arrived at West Yellowstone on Saturday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend and then went on to Big Sky, MT, where we actually headquartered during our time at Yellowstone. It was in Big Sky where we were able to get a reservation for a time share as closer to the park there is a two-year waiting time. Big Sky is about 40 miles from the West Yellowstone, the west entrance to the park. Joining us for the Memorial weekend were our friends the Schmidt’s from Beulah, ND.

Our first foray into the park was on Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. Much of the park was not yet open as we were there before the first week of June when many campgrounds etc. were scheduled to open. We made a big loop through the park and hit various high points including, of course, a stop at Old Faithful. Margaret was intent on our eating a picnic lunch. Unfortunately most of the picnic places still had snow piles around them. However that did not stop us! We found a table that had no snow on it although we had to crawl over some banks to get to it. The experience of picnicking in the snow of Yellowstone will remain with us for some time.

The Schmidt’s left us on Tuesday and we began the first of three days of exploring some of the intricacies of Yellowstone Park. It truly is an amazing place and has been a national park since created “for the benefit and enjoyment of the people” by an act of congress on March 1, 1872. (This Fall Yellowstone was a special focus of the Ken Burns series on PBS focusing on the National Park system.) It is a photographer’s dream! We especially liked a tour of Old Faithful Inn and upon another visit would enjoy staying there. We also enjoyed the wildlife especially the buffalo and were caught several times in “buffalo jams” on the roads. Outside of West Yellowstone was a sign that counted “15 BISON IMPACTS THIS YR.” That was at the end of May; one wonders how many it registered for the year! Margaret also especially enjoyed the bacteria mats that are formed around the geysers that are so prominent in certain areas of the park. We also spent one day around Big Sky visiting the enormous lodge at the ski run and exploring the town which was in part developed by Chet Huntley, the former NBC newsman.

At the end of our visit to Yellowstone and our stay in Big Sky we journeyed through Bozeman where we visited the Museum of the Rockies. It is quite an interesting museum. I enjoyed a photographic display entitled “Sheep Ranching in Paradise” the photography of John Haberstroh. It depicts sheep ranching in Montana in the early part of the 20th Century. The Harvat Ranch existed from 1889-1953. From Bozeman we traveled on to Billings where we celebrated Margaret’s birthday a week early. She caught a return flight to Arizona and her work on Sunday morning and I traveled on to Bismarck, ND.

Margaret returned to the upper plains the weekend of the 4th of July. She flew into Fargo and we traveled to Dorset and Park Rapids, Minnesota, where her mother, Betty was spending the summer with her uncle Mike at his home outside of Dorset. I did some hiking along the old railroad bed trail between Dorset and Park Rapids and from Dorset to Nevis. We also saw the 4th of July fireworks display in Park Rapids. We returned to Fargo where Margaret again caught a return flight to Arizona.

When I had left Billings at the end of May I took a detour to visit the Little Big Horn Battlefield, the site of Custer’s Last Stand which was more of a “clash of cultures” in 1876. The last time that I was there was 40 years ago when I had graduated from college and took a trip to the west coast with my parents. I don’t remember much from that visit but it seems that a lot has been done to improve the presentation of the location. I took in a great presentation by one of the seasonal park rangers who has spent many summers working at the park and has written a book tracing the course of the battle.

I spent the month of June and part of July in ND. During that time I did some work at the farm including tearing down a fence and doing some fix up work on the old house. I was also able to oversee the installation of a hookup for rural water into the farmstead. I also did a lot of visiting and showing off the book Johnson Barn Restoration 2006-2008 that Margaret had produced using Heritage Makers.

I stayed in ND until July 12th in order to attend an event at the Zoar United Methodist Church south of New Leipzig. The church is located in the community where my mother was born and raised. The congregation decided to close the church this year due to a lack of active families able to support its activities. As a result of the closing event we had a mini-family reunion. Cousins Arnold Keller came from Portland, OR; Ruthann Remele from Denver, CO; and Debbie Wahus and husband Don from Williston, ND. We are all descendants of Fred and Ottilia (Vossler) Kurle who homesteaded in the area and were instrumental in the founding of the church. Arnold spoke for the family at the afternoon service and did a marvelous job. We all have memories of the church including the funerals and burial of our grandparents in the church cemetery. Cousin Larry Remele and his mother Esther are also buried in that cemetery. After the festivities at the church we stopped by the Kurle homestead which is now owned by a family named “Koepplin.” I had made arrangements with them to visit the place. They were not at home but had given us permission to look around. Since purchasing the farmstead they burned down the house which our grandparents had built in about 1916 and have constructed a new ranch style home.

Margaret lost her grandmother, Elizabeth Windels, at the age of 97 this year and she attended that funeral in Omaha, NE, at the end of March. That sad occasion provided her a chance to get together with her brother and cousins who she hadn’t seen for several years. Margaret has been able to combine work with pleasure this year when she has traveled to Massachusetts and Florida. While in western MA her sister Carol came down from Canada and her cousin Beth from the Boston area and they had a cousins’ weekend in the Berkshires although the peak of fall foliage had passed. In early November, before doing a training program in Orlando, FL, she spent the weekend with her mother in Sebring. Betty and Mike are now back there for the winter. She was also able to see her brother Mark and sister-in-law Dianna and her nephews Joshua and Jordan.

Over Labor Day weekend we drove to San Diego to visit Margaret’s brother Len who relocated there for work after having lived in Pennsylvania for many years. We had a good time visiting the USS Midway carrier museum and Cabrillo National Monument and the Point Loma Ecological Conservation Area. While in San Diego we also visited my 2nd cousin Dan and Verna Sundquist and had dinner at their home.

Arizona Visitors-Visits and Activities
Again this year we came up a little short on entertaining visitors to Arizona at our home. (I guess that we are just a little too far off the beaten track for most people to include Tucson on their itineraries!) However, in early February we did enjoy a night out with my friends Randy and Jill Euken from the Atlantic, Iowa, area who were in town for several days attending a conference. Margaret did some touring with them while I was at work and that night we took them to the La Fuente Mexican Restaurant where there is always a Mariachi group performing.

On our way up to Sedona we spent a night with my cousin Vergene and Don Follows at their home in Prescott. Vergene and I had a nice visit reminiscing about family and events in our past and Margaret was able to help Don solve some e-mail problems on his computer. This fall I planted a winter garden. We took along our first cutting of Swiss Chard to Prescott and Vergene prepared it for our evening meal.

Lest we give everyone the impression that all we do is travel here are some other examples of our life near home. Our adventures in Tucson and around Arizona this year included attending the Tucson Pops concerts during the winter months; the Mariachi Festival at the end of April; the Tucson Symphonic Winds outdoor concerts at Udall Park in September; St. Melany’s Byzantine Catholic Church festival; the Festival of Books at the University of Arizona; the ND Picnic in Mesa this past spring; and An Evening with Patti Lupone and Mandy Patinkin. Margaret joined a gym this past year and dutifully goes there to work out when she isn’t on the road. I mentioned hiking earlier and in order to get some exercise do what I call “urban hiking” on trails that the Tucson Parks and Recreation Department has developed along the Rillito River and elsewhere.

Seasons Greetings
As you can see we have had a busy and hopefully productive year. However we have been saddened on several occasions during the past year by the passing of relatives, friends and acquaintances. As we get older I would suppose that is to be expected and more reason than ever why it is important to keep friends and loved ones near and dear. Given that we want to extend the best to everyone and wish you all a Blessed Holiday Season along with our Hopes for a Happy New Year.

Check out some of photos!