Wednesday, July 25th - Friends and Family

Today, we had Bill and Fran Welch join us for lunch at our campsite. I worked for Bill at Braniff Airlines in Dallas in the late '60's - early '70's. Bill had me work on the Hawaiian Airlines and On-line Schedule Change projects which were the first projects of "substance" in my early career. Bill left Braniff and went to work with TWA in Kansas City, residing in Blue Springs. We stayed in touch for several years but then lost contact. On a whim, I looked in the Blue Springs phonebook last Sunday while visiting Debbie Yeldell at the Lake Lotawana home and found Bill and Fran still residing in Blue Springs! They graciously accepted our invitation to lunch. MA prepared a beautiful lunch with sliced tomatoes, cantaloupe and chicken salad. We shared many stories and it was a GREAT visit! On a sad note, the pic I took of the table and our guests was too blurry to publish - my fault - loose nut holding the camera.

Later we drove over to Janet & Bob's in Kansas and on to their daughter, Melissa's beautiful home. There we met Melissa and Joe's year-old son, Drew. What a fine looking young man!

After helping Bob with some computer-to-computer conversions, we went to Kokopelli's Mexican Restaurant in Prairie Village, Kansas. Joining us was Aileen, Janet's mother, Steve (Janet's brother) and Louise and Rick (another brother) and Charlene. This was our only chance to visit with Rick and Char. They are flying to Boston tomorrow where Rick is running in an "Ultra Marathon" in Wakefield, MA near Boston. Rick has set a goal of running a marathon in ALL 50 states + DC. So far, he is at 32 and counting! What a man!

On a VERY sad note, today we learned of the passing of Uncle Harry Brelsford in Topeka, Kansas. We visited with Lou and Harry Monday of last week and at that time, we knew his time was close at hand. At 90+ years of age and 68+ years of marriage, I would say that Harry lived a VERY full life. He will be missed!