Current story:
President Obama relaxed restrictions on travel to Cuba in January 2011 which enabled us to go there in 2012.
An ecotourism company we had previously traveled with agreed to book the trip for Diane, myself and three other women from Columbia, MO. A Cuban guide showed us the sights around Havana, the Vinales Valley and the island of La Aldea Taína. We stayed at a hotel near Trinidad on the Caribbean Coast. From there we visited a hacienda in a nature reserve park in the Escambray Mountains where a naturalist gave us a special tour. We returned to Havana for a wonderful night of jazz before flying back to the US through Mexico.
To read more of this story and view the pictures, go to the list of Pages and Stories on the right and click on
2012 Begins with a Trip to Cuba.
Also, please feel free to forward the link to
anyone you think might be interested in reading this or one of the previous
stories.
Previous stories:
The two stories at the bottom are about my wife Diane's onset of dementia and her last series of illnesses and death. The remaining stories are about my life from college days through meeting Diane and our life together, including our many travels. These story names are above the bottom two and progress up the page chronologically.
23.
We Cruise the Columbia River Before SIS Ends in Munich: In September 2011 Diane and
I went “On the Trail of Lewis and Clark: A
Columbia and Snake River Expedition” with Road Scholar. The tour started in Portland, OR with a
cruise on a National Geographic boat through the locks and dams of the Columbia
River. We traveled in the opposite direction
of Lewis and Clark going up the Snake River to Clarkston, WA. Our visits onshore taught us much about Lewis
and Clark’s trip and the American Indian tribes that helped them. We also learned about the geography of the
area we traversed. On the return trip,
we followed the path of the two explorers to the mouth of the Pacific
Ocean. In December, we flew to Munich,
Germany for the last job that Sebaugh’s Information Services (SIS) had before I
completely retired.
22. Road Scholar Trip to England, Wales & Scotland: In May 2011 Diane and I went on our first Road Scholar trip, “Quintessential Britain.” We started on our own in London, with visits to the Globe theatre, Greenwich and the Old Bailey. After joining the tour, we saw many exhibits at the British Museum before going to Stonehenge and the City of Bath. As we traveled north, we toured many castles, gardens, cities and regions like the Cotswolds, Wales, York and Chester before ending in Edinburgh. Even then, we hadn’t seen enough and stayed on for two more tours in Scotland. I learned so much about that island and English history.
21. Petra, Pyramids and Palmyra: Diane and I traveled with my sister to the Middle East in November and December 2010. In Jordan, we stopped at the Dead Sea and many Roman ruins and castles before visiting Petra. It contains tombs and temples carved into pink sandstone cliffs. After a brief visit in Cairo, we flew to Luxor to see the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. While sailing the Nile to Aswan, there were many stops to visit ancient temples. After a flight back to Cairo, we went to Giza to see the pyramids and sphinx. The last country on this trip was Syria where we visited Damascus, Palmyra, Aleppo and the Golan Heights.
20. Missouri, Illinois and Kansas: We spent the summer of 2010
taking “bite-size” driving trips. In
Missouri, we visited the Johnsons Shut-Ins, Elephant Rock, Ste.
Genevieve and the Mastodon
State Historic Site. In Springfield,
Illinois we toured the old and new State Capitols and the Abraham Lincoln Home,
Tomb and Presidential Museum. In Kansas,
we visited the Brown vs. Board of Education National Historic Site, the Capitol
and Museum of History, the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, the
campuses of the University of Kansas and Johnson County Community College and
the Thomas Hart Benton Home and Studio State Historic Site. Dinner at the Justus Drugstore was a perfect
gustatory ending to our summer.
19. Tahiti, Caves and Big Bend: We enjoyed the hospitality shown us while touring the South Pacific islands of Tahiti both on land and on our luxurious cruise ship. Our next travel was by car, first stopping to tour Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. That was the first cave I ever visited as a young girl with my parents. We spent a night at the Shaker Village before continuing on to New Jersey where we attended my sister’s family reunion. We visited Diane’s family before heading home with a stop in Iowa to visit an Olivia friend. I was elated that the second post-retirement paper I wanted to publish had been accepted for publication in the journal Pharmaceutical Statistics. We started 2010 with a three-week driving trip that featured a visit with Joe and Karen in Sante Fe, New Mexico and a tour of Big Bend National Park in Texas.
18. High School Reunion and Rhone
River Cruise: The grand reopening of the Missouri
Theatre was much more fun than my 50th high school reunion. We thought of our cruise on the Rhone River
in France as our first real river boat cruise since the river wasn’t created by
a dam (like the Yangtze). Before the
cruise, we visited Nice, Monaco and the Jacques Cousteau Museum. We appreciated the celebration on the river
for Bastille Day and the Resistance Museum in Lyon since we had read about
both. Of course, the food and wine we
saw in the markets and devoured on the cruise was yummy. Our post-cruise visits to Brussels and Bruges
were also memorable.
17. Retiring SIS and Touring China: Sebaugh’s Information Services (SIS) clientele was dwindling. While I still had access to my SAS
programming tool, I was able to finish the calculations for my second academic
paper. Our first international trip of
2008 was to China. We flew and flew
going as far north as Harbin which is near Russia and as far south as Jinghong
which is near the borders of Myanmar (Burma) and Laos, as well as points in
between. We ended the trip with a Yangtze
River cruise.
15. Families, Friends, Barcelona to Rome: My client numbers were dwindling which enabled more time for
friends, family visits and community involvement. During an East Coast trip, we saw many of
Diane’s cousins and toured two DuPont estates with my sister and her
husband. The Missouri Botanical Gardens
were the back-drop for World Tai Chi Day and a Chihuly Exhibit in the
Climatron. Our international trip
started in Barcelona enabling us to explore the delights of that city. Our first Windstar cruise took us through the
Mediterranean to Rome where we saw the many sights we had read about and seen
portrayed in movies.
14.
2005 Concludes with Machu Picchu and Galapagos:
In the fall of 2005, I turned 65 and we celebrated with a
fantastic trip. We saw our first Chihuly
exhibit in Miami. Then we started our
second visit to South America with a flight to Lima, Peru. We went to Machu Picchu, a city built on the
top of a mountain by the Incas in the 15th century. Then we flew to the Galapagos and boarded a
small ship to explore the several islands.
It was a special time as there were many young birds and mammals with
their parents. To conclude our trip, we
left the tour and flew to the Ecuadorean capital of Quito.
13.
2005 Visit to Italy and Switzerland: In the spring of 2005, we had three different wine tasting
experiences in three different countries: California, U.S.A, Tuscany, Italy and
Sion, Switzerland. In Italy, Craig drove
us from Rome to Florence with stops in Tarquinia, Scansano and Sienna. We rode trains to visit Locarno in Italy, as
well as Sion, Gstaad, Lucerne and Zurich in Switzerland.
12. 2004 Includes
Trips to Newfoundland and Antarctica: Now in our Columbia house, we were enjoying our community activities,
even starting Tai Chi. We made trips to
visit family and friends, attended weddings and a graduation. We learned a lot about our neighboring
countries in North and South America, finding they had icebergs in common. On the Newfoundland trip we visited a large
bird colony, and in Antarctica we saw immense penguin colonies.
11. 2003 Trips to Alaska
and the Pacific Northwest: My customer base was shrinking which left more time for
travel. The first of two papers I was
working on was published. We went on two
Olivia cruises: their 30th anniversary cruise to the Eastern Caribbean and
their cruise from Vancouver, Canada to Anchorage, Alaska. We visited many old friends on our next trip
driving from Portland to Bend, Oregon, then stopping in Seattle, Washington
before circumnavigating the Olympic Peninsula.
10. Return to the Liberal
Oasis: Diane completed her task of overseeing the construction of our
Columbia house and, in the dead of winter, we move back to Columbia. We became very busy women with our
involvement in Columbia activities. We
also traveled to London, Paris and Norway, as well as both coasts in the
U.S. Diane and I went on three more
Olivia cruises: in the Baltic Ocean, up to Alaska and in the Eastern
Caribbean. The first of two papers based
on my own research was published.
9. Disenchantment
with Life at the Lake: The consulting business was keeping me
busy. Diane and I went on two more
Olivia trips, a cruise to the Panama Canal and a land trip to New Zealand and Australia. The number of guests at the lake decreased,
and we missed the range of activities and more liberal atmosphere of
Columbia. We finally decided to build a
house there.
8. Getting to Know You: Diane and I first dated in
1990, first kissed in 1991 and then started testing the possibility for a
longer-term relationship. We kept
separate households for a few years until Diane resigned her position with
Planned Parenthood. We entertained
friends and family at the lake, traveled three times with Olivia and made two
visits to Florida. At the same time,
with Diane’s help, I was busy growing my statistical consulting business.
7. An Unexpected
Beginning: I had intended the move to the Lake of the
Ozarks to simplify life, allowing me to focus my consulting on corporate
clients rather than students. I was living alone in a big home, but determined
not to jump into another relationship before learning more about myself. After
a few months, an opportunity came to meet a new single friend that I could do things
with. After a rough start, a kiss changed my calculations.
6. Starting Life As An
Entrepreneur: Could I be successful if I started my own full-time business? If I wasn’t, what were my chances of being
offered a job? These were the questions
I had to answer, and I had a strategy for doing so. It worked beyond my wildest dreams. I found I was quite employable. Better yet, I was offered contracts in three
different divisions of Monsanto, all of them involving work with
scientists. However, my relationship
with Gwen didn’t withstand the stresses introduced by starting a new business
and planning a move to the Lake of the Ozarks.
5. Goodbye Kansas City,
Hello Columbia: Set in the context of the early 1970s and
1980s, this story begins when I meet a woman who turned out to be the one with
whom I would share my life for the next 16 years. After earning a Ph.D., my job
opportunity turned out to be in Columbia, not Kansas City. I didn’t stay with the university although I
gained some valuable experience consulting with faculty and students. After five years working on a unique project
for the USDA, I was faced with having to make a decision about my next career
move.
4. Changes: The
Spice of Life?: After losing my Kansas City Woman, I am again
on my own. I am hired to be the first
computer programmer at the Kansas University Medical Center. The girlfriends come and go as we play
basketball and fast pitch softball. At
last, I fall in love with the idea of becoming a statistical consultant, teach
data processing at Johnson County Community College while completing the
requirements and earning my master’s degree in Mathematics.
3. Goin’ to Kansas
City: In June 1962 I started my job in Kansas City with IBM. I loved learning about the new computers
being marketed for the first time. I now
know that I am attracted to women and search for female companionship,
eventually finding a girlfriend.
2. Imagine My Surprise: What’s it like in 1959 to discover you have a
condition that is considered to be a mental disease and morally bad. I fought it, but eventually could not deny
the fact that I was attracted to females.
That first kiss was powerful with much promise for the future.
1. Houses: I had a
lot of fun finding pictures of all the houses and dormitories I lived in, from
1940 to 1962. It triggered memories about
those times that I share with you.
Don’t Let Her See
Me Cry: This story can be considered a sequel to The
Descent into Dementia. It describes the
events that led to Diane’s death. She
needed more care, couldn’t get it where we lived and we made plans to
move. Before it could happen, her
physical decline plus a bout of Covid led to a hospital stay, rehab, then another
hospital stay which ended in comfort care and discharge into hospice.
The Descent into
Dementia: It sneaks up on both of you, the one who has
Alzheimer's and the caregiver. This is a
story of the stages Diane and I went through after it entered our lives, and
how we coped with its realities.