NOVEMBER 1999 - OUR TRAIN TRIP ACROSS CANADA WITH THE WILSON’S By this time Jean was in love with traveling by train. We happened to mention that we would like to try taking VIA (the Canadian Amtrak) across Canada at some Colony function and Keith and Joan Wilson overheard. From there a trip plan was made. We booked two connecting compartments on VIA from Toronto to Vancouver.

So on November 12th 1999 we boarded the VIA in Toronto and headed west for about 2200 miles through Canada to Jasper, Alberta.

The accommodations, including the food, were not as good as Amtrak, but Ok. We got off checked into the Jasper Lodge, a beautiful railroad owned hotel in Jasper. We stayed there for the night. The next morning we picked up our rented car and headed for Lake Louise 70 miles south. We were booked at the Lake Louise Lodge, and because Joan twisted her ankle getting into the elevator, they upgraded us to two suites overlooking the lake. It was snowing and beautiful.

Our plan was to go on to Banff, but it was starting to snow pretty heavy, so we decided to go back to Jasper. We had a big Oldsmobile with all weather tires. About half way back to Jasper we got into a white-out. We creeped along at about 20 mph for a few miles before it cleared.

The next day we boarded the train and headed for Vancouver, about 500 miles west. In Vancouver we said good-by to Keith and Joan. We met Kevin and Staci in Vancouver for the night. We flew home the next morning. This trip was overloaded with beautiful country, but enough is enough.

MAY 4, 2000 - JEAN’S SISTER LINDA DIED

LINDA JOANNE GROVES (YANTIS) b. Nov 12, 1945 d. May 4, 2000
Linda was the baby in the family. She got married right out of high school. She and her husband Mike lived the free life. In our day they were Hippies. Ironically her dad and two sisters died young from cancer as a result smoking and drinking. Her Dad died at 64 from lung cancer. Carol died at 44 from throat cancer. Linda died at 55 from throat cancer.

JUNE 2000 - ANOTHER TRIP TO SHANGI-LA This time we were accompanied by Gary and Phylles Nelson.

NEW YEARS 2001 Just pictures of a few friends at the end of the year.

MAY 2001 - CRUISED TO ALASKA ON THE SEA PRINCESS Jean and I and our old traveling buddies, Tim and Marianne Knapp, cruised from Vancouver to Anchorage. Then we got on the Princess buses to Denali and then we got on the Princess train that took us the rest of the way to Fairbanks. The part from Anchorage to Fairbanks is referred to as a land cruise. We were the first ship of the season able the get into the inland waterways. The highlight of the whole trip was the helicopter ride out of Juneau and the walk on the glacier.

SEPTEMBER 2001 - GOLF IN MEXICO We had a group from The Colony travel to Mexico for two days of golf, at 2 beautiful golf courses, Baja Mar and Vista del Something. The group included Hal and Jan Olcott, Bob and Barbara Proctor, Lee and Joan Graves, Bruce and Ann Hartwig, Annette and Ben Lalicker and Jean and I. This was the trip where Jean coined the phrase “Who in the world are the Proctor’s”.

JANUARY 2, 2002 UNCLE MACK DIED

JAMES MACK EASTON b. Nov 4, 2014 d. Jan 2, 2002
Mack and my dad were pretty close. They were very close in age also. I could not find Mack’s birthdate, b ut I think they were only a couple of months apart and I think dad was the elder of the two. One reason they were so close was because dad lived with grandpa and grandma Easton during his junior year in High School because of a falling out with his own father. Of course Mack and Ray and Wanda (grandma Martin) were Easton siblings.

SEPTEMBER 10, 2002 MY DAD DIED

PORTER AUTHELL (THELL) MARTIN b. April 30, 1916 d. Sept 10, 2002
My dad joined my mother September 10, 2002. They were finally together again. I don’t know what power controls the wonders of life, and if there is any fairness in the script, then they will be together for ever.

He was the first born and the fifth of the eight siblings to pass. He was always the big brother and Chairman of the Board of his family. He was also a wonderful brother, father and husband. Unfortunately when two people are joined together as was my mother and father, one of them must exit first. And he ended up just waiting to die. It’s just not fair. Endings should be happy. And dad, if you are somewhere watching or listening there is something I would like to get off my chest. I did something that caused you to be angry with me in the last few weeks of your life. On the advice of the doctors, I took away the keys to your truck. I would like to apologize for the profound lack of respect on my part. It made you very unhappy. You deserved the respect you earned. For as long as I can remember you were the guy to step up when anyone needed help. Any kind of help. If you needed money you would give you your last dollar. If someone was freezing and needed a jacket he would give you one of his. If you needed a place to live, his home was your home. He taught me his two rules to live by. First don’t take what does not belong to you. Second don’t lie

DECEMBER 2002 OUR THIRD GRANDCHILD WAS BORN On the 6th day of December our third grandchild Troy Matthew was born to Michele. She was 44 years old. Troy is a gift to us.

2003 WILMA’S FINAL MOVE We moved Wilma to a facility in Corona. She had reached the point that she needed constant care. She was placed in an Alzheimer’s ward.

APRIL 7, 2003 JEAN’S 60TH BIRTHDAY Had a few of our close friends dropped over for a little party to celebrate Jean getting old.

2003 UNCLE DAN DIED

DANIEL EASTON MARTIN b. September 25, 1927 d. May 11, 2003
Dan was the sixth of eight children and also the sixth to pass, leaving his older sister Louise and younger brother Mitch. Around Beaver he was known as The Boss. He was the managing partner of the Ponderosa Café. He also had the concessions at the Mountain Meadows Ski Lodge. Dan and I had a lot of fun. From the time I got old enough to drink, every time I would go to Beaver we would have a raging party. We would over indulge. Several times it started at the horse races in Beaver, drinking out of the trunk of some-ones car. One time we were at the races and I wanted him to pick me a winner. We looked at the program and spotted a horse that might be the one, but first he said we had to go down where they were saddling the horse for the race. On the way he said the owner had been barred from Colorado, Nevada, and Wyoming for juicing his horses. He said if the horse was bug eyed and drooling we got a bet. We looked and the horse’s eyes were bugging out and he was slobbering all over the place. We laughed till we cried. We won and I think the horse is still running. Dan had horses that ran at Santa Anita, Del Mar, Pomona and Hollywood Park. We would go and stand in the walking ring with Willy Shoemaker and the other jocks and owners before riders up. It was really a lot of fun. Will miss the Boss.

2004 JEAN’S MOTHER DIED

WILMA LUCILLE (KIDWELL) YANTIS b. February 18, 1913 d. August 9, 2004
Grandma Yantis was a wonderful mother in law. She had a reputation of being difficult to get along with, but I saw none of that. She came to visit two or three times a year and was always a lot of help and a wonderful grandmother to our children. She was very close to Michele. When Jean and I married and she and Michele moved to California, it almost broke Wilma’s heart. She moved to California in 1992Wilma’s daughters Carol (on her right) and Linda (on her left). Her husband Don proceeded her in death. Don died June 12, 1974, he was 64. Carol died September 9, 1978, she was 44. Linda died May 4, 2000, she was 55. This leaves Jean as the only living member of her immediate family.

2005 - I WAS DIAGNOSED WITH PARKINSON’S DISEASE Jean was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1994. Makes you wonder. Must be something in the water.

JUNE 2005 OUR FAMILY TRIP TO MAUI One of our best family vacations was the trip to Maui in 2005. We stayed at the Lahaina Shores Hotel. That hotel is right in Lahaina just south of the big Banyon tree and about three blocks from the house Kevin rented. The weather beautiful.

CHRISTMAS 2005 This was slow year, no births, marriages or deaths.

NEW YEARS 2006 We are blessed with a group of special friends. We’ll call it the core club. Just think, we have only been at the Colony for about eight years. Of course it helps that Jean is the chairperson for the Social Committee. She and her committee plan all of the social activities in the clubhouse. As the chair,she chose to put on the New Years Party every year. She seats about three hundred guests, feeds them ( fancy hors’deorves), an open bar included in your ticket and a live band. As usual, it was fabulous this year.

JUNE 2006 BACK TO NEWPORT BEACH WITH THE FAMILY We have been coming to Newport for about 40 years. We have stayed in a number of houses from one end of the beach to the other, probably the Shepherd’s house on 38th more time than any. This year we have the lower floor of the center house in the picture below at 3903 Seashore for the first time. I think it’s supposed to sleep six. I think we have more like sixteen.

We boarded a British Airways 747 and flew from LAX to Heathrow in London. We checked into The Winchester Hotel in London to start our 32 day European vacation. Jean and I were on our own in London. We were to hook up with Tim and Marianne Knapp in Paris. We spent three wonderful days in London.

On October 23rd we took the Chunnel to Paris and checked into the Grand Hotel Leveque, a beautiful little hotel located on the Rue Cler (pedestrian street) clogged with hotels shops and connoisseurs of good eating), located about a half a mile from the Eiffel Tower. On our second day in Paris Tim and Marianne Knapp joined us at the hotel. We also met up with Jim and Joyce Henke and her daughter and son in-law.

We stayed in Paris with the Knapp’s until 26th, and then to get to Barcelona we took a high speed train, 130 to 140 mph, south through the beautiful countryside France to Perpignan where we had to make a connection to a commuter train to Barcelona. I remember that our travel agent at AAA warned us that there was only about 15 minutes to change trains in Perpignan, so we were alert to the fact that we must get off our train and locate the commuter to Barcelona in a hurry, and remember we are managing our own luggage. If you have ever traveled on the trains in Europe, there is not a lot of help available in the station. You are pretty much on your own. Well we did a good job of getting off our train and locating and boarding and storing our luggage on the commuter train to Barcelona. We were really proud of ourselves. We even got good seats. We sat there for a few minutes when a crowd assembled on the platform and then the crowd started to move to another train on an adjacent track. Since we didn’t speak French, we didn’t know what was going on. A very nice lady sitting next to us, who spoke English, informed us that they could not get the engine started on this train, so we were to change trains. We gathered up our luggage and managed to get everything on the other train. Of course we had to sit on our luggage. Well guess what? Ten minutes later they announced that they got the first engine started, so we had to repeat the process and get on the first train. This time we were lucky to get ourselves and luggage on the train, and we had to stand all the way to Barcelona.

Believe it or not, we were only about fifteen minutes late to Barcelona, flying through stations with the pedal to the metal covering approximately 160 kilometers in record time. We arrived ready to party when we checked into the Hotel Continental on the la Rambla, a pedestrian street that was alive with people all night. On the second day Bruce and Ann Hartwig joined us at the Continental. We spent the next three days touring the city.

On the 29th of October we boarded the good ship Millennium for a Celebrity Cruise from Barcelona to Venice. Our group of friends taking the cruise included Tim and Marianne Knapp, Bruce and Ann Hartwig, Jim and Joyce Henke, Joel and Jonnie Newcomer, Mel and Vivian Soper, and Dick and Kay Farland. The twelve day cruise took us to Nice, Monaco and Monte Carlo in France. Florence and Pisa, Rome, Naples (Pompoi) in Italy. We then sailed to Greece where we made ports at Santorini and Piraeus (Athens). Our next port was the beautiful walled city of Dubrovnik, Croatia. Our last port on the cruise was Venice Italy.

We departed the ship with the Knapp’s on the 10th of November. The four of us stayed that night at the Savoia and Jolanda hotel on the waterfront in the fascinating city of Venice. We rented a car with the Knapp’s, and drove for the next four days through Austria, Germany and into Switzerland.

Our first day on the road from Venice, we drove north through Italy, into Austria, where we spent the night at Hotel Tyrolis in Innsbruck ( where we got a call in the middle of the night informing us that our grandson Owen was born). The second day we proceeded north into Germany, where we stayed for the night at the NH Klosterle Nordlingen Hotel in Nordlingen. We didn’t have a hotel reservation the next night, so Jean decided it was her turn to pick accommodations for that night. We proceeded to drive through the Black Forest, and in the afternoon we started looking for a place to bed down for the night, but all of the hotels and B & B’s were closed for the season. We started to get worried, but about 20km north of Freiburg in the beautiful village of Elztal; Jean spotted a hotel on a hill above the town. The Elztal Hotel turned out to be a beautiful four star hotel, and one of the highlights of our trip.

The next day we drove south to Lucern, Switzerland. We dropped the car off in Lucern and checked into the Hotel Drei Koenige for two days, then took the Golden Pass ScenicTrain to Interlaken, Switzerland. The Knapp’s left us there and headed for Paris. Jean and I stayed in Interlaken for two days at lovely little B & B called Sunny Days, with a beautiful view of Jungfraujoch (the highest mountain in Europe). We took a cogwheel train to the top. Then took the scenic train to Lausanne where we stayed overnight. We took the train back to Paris, where we met up with the Knapp’s again, and we all took the Chunnel back to London. Stayed overnight in London and flew home the next day, the 20th of November. A wonderful trip.

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