I received the following email from Dottie Bishop Rogers this morning. I thought all of you would enjoy hearing what she's been up to! I tried to get her to send recent photos of her and her special friend, Larry. If she does send them, I will publish them here. I hope all of you have lots of good stuff happening in your life as well. If you wish to share, just email me... Marilyn
Hello, All,
I appreciate so much the news of the passing of our dear friends and classmates. What memories are recalled! I know each of us sends prayers to the families, and we add our own prayers for our loss.
I wanted to tell you something I think was just great for an old lady of 72. On March 30, my very special friend, Larry, and I started on our great adventure in his motor home. We left Arizona with our first stop in San Diego; we went to Disneyland and Universal Studios, and we rode as many rides as we could get in. I felt like such a kid again! At the Blues Brothers Revue, I was chosen to dance with the Dan Akroyd character and Larry sang. I have never laughed so much in my life.
We left San Diego and chose to skirt L.A. in the motor home, so we stopped in Bakersfield on our way to Hearst Castle in San Simeon. We had a small delay - I was in the emergency room at a trauma center for a day and a half after picking up the super glue instead of my eyedrops. (Don't laugh - I truly did that!) Fortunately, the second day an opthalmologist pried my eye open with no major damage and we continued on our trip. After Hearst Castle, we continued up the west coast to Portland, then on to Ocean Shores, WA where Larry had some beach property. We rested for a week there and on to Bremerton, WA (across Puget Sound from Seattle), and stayed a week there visiting with Larry's relatives and friends. This was his hometown and where he worked on nuclear submarines and carriers at the shipyards for 30 years.
We could not get into Yellowstone because of the snow, but we traveled across Montana into Idaho and South Dakota. We visited Mt. Rushmore and the Crazy Horse memorial, which was awesome. On across Wyoming, Colorado, and into Utah to Moab. We saw the Arches National Park and Canyonlands. Folks, if there is anyone out there who does not believe there is a God, take a look at the beauty of our nation. Wow! We continued into Monument Valley and the Navajo Reservation, and on to Holbrook, AZ and home. This adventure took six weeks and 5,000 miles.
We know how blessed we were to experience this trip and know at our age, seldom, if ever, will we be able to do it again. I plan to take him on a trip around Texas next year, but it will probably be by car and stopping at many golf courses. We would have loved to do that on this trip, but we were met with rain, sleet, hail, and snow, and terrible winds in several places. I loved it, but my driver was not too thrilled at the weather. Have you ever played golf in WA? Well, you have to have webbed feet, I promise you.
This epistle has about run its course, but I just wanted to share that there is still beauty, love, and peace in our world. As Marilyn always says,
Peace and Love to you all.
Dottie