More on '98

Mair was with us the first couple of months of 1998, and she and I took numerous trips, over to the coast twice, up to the big trees, San Francisco and of course Yosemite with Dick.    It was a good visit although she wasn't in the best of health after the loss of Norman early in 1997.

Later in the year we had a nice visit from Tricia.    We hadn't seen her in a while so it was greatly enjoyed.   

Our grandkids had some big events with Becky's AA:

Debbie went with me to Sacramento for that event, then later Louise and I went to Salt Lake City for Marie's graduation.

As you can see Becky and kids were there too, along with Mindy, Joe and Lynn.

Another big event was Bill and Frances' 50th anniversary celebration held in Oakhurst.

Dick and I made a major decision this year.     Financially the vineyard in Kingsburg was not good for us, the 40 acres did not have enough crop to sustain the upkeep on the beautiful house, yard and pool, so we were forced to think of alternatives.    We considered various places in California, but everything was so expensive.     We also had a lot more traveling that we wanted to do, so made the decision to move to the Midwest so we would be in the middle of the country, and also where the cost of living was considerably less.   

We showed off our place with a lot of photos and in prior trips to the Midwest we had thought we would like to be in the quadrant of NE Oklahoma, NW Arkansas, SE Kansas, or SW Missouri.   We had been subscribing to a realty book that came out quarterly on land and farms in various areas.

The vineyard sold, and we took the final trip to pin it down, ending up in El Dorado Springs, Missouri.   A close second was a place called Poteau in Oklahoma, but at that time what we found didn't seem to fit the dogs so well.    They were used to total freedom and we didn't want to change that if possible.    Louise was going to make the move with us too.   The El Dorado place was ten acres and few homes anywhere near us, and had a separate living area with full bath for Louise.    It was the obvious choice.

So here comes the packing and making the move..............