Mike and Susan
We took the next year off, exploring the beauty of Oregon, knowing that we would probably have to leave Oregon when we finally went back to work. During that year Mike began writing a novel that someday he may finish. I keep telling him it is better than most of the books you buy today and that it would make a great movie. Our year off ended in September 1997 when Mike was hired by Sprint and we moved to Dallas, TX. I eventually found employment with GTE (now Verizon) and we settled into our life in Dallas. Neither one of us was happy there. We found it especially difficult to adjust to all the people having lived in the mountains of Oregon where there were about 60,000 people in 7,000 square miles and then moving to Dallas where there are several million people in the same area. So, with his boss’ blessing and an OK to telecommute we made the move to The Villages, FL in August 2000. We recently became independent distributors of Send Out Cards. Send Out Cards is a very unique, exciting and easy way to stay in touch with family, friends and associates. You, too, might wish to explore this either as a way to inexpensively send cards or as a potential business opportunity. For more information visit the Send Out Cards web site or email MIKE or SUSAN for information. REMEMBER, though, if you click to see more information you will be taken to an external web page and will need to click on the back arrow to get back here. We have also kept our hand in writing and have published two travel articles for our local newspaper, The Villages Daily Sun. After five years of living in Florida and retirement finally here, we decided to sell our home, purchase a 5th wheel and experience life on the road. We plan to continue writing travel articles for the Villages Daily Sun as we travel the country and possibly expanding into other areas. We have also resurrected a book Mike started 8 years ago, a Grisham type novel, and plan to work on it on the road. January 2006 we took off for the open road planning on exploring the US. We headed to California where we spent a month visiting family and friends. We then headed for Oregon. Unfortunately as we reached Oregon my Mother passed away and we headed back to Santa Barbara to join the family for her funeral and preparing their home for sale. It was a very bitter-sweet time. Good because we were all together as a family but so sad as we lost Mother. She will always be in our hearts, though. We headed back to Oregon and spent time visiting the many friends we met over the 12 years we lived there as well as family. It was then on to Washington and more visiting with friends and family. It was wonderful to be able to take the time to visit with friends and family we hadn't seen for such a long time. We then crossed over the Canadian border on May 7th to start our four month Canadian/Alaskan adventure. We had a spectacular trip through Canada and the time we spent in Alaska we will never forget. You can read our journal and see our pictures of these adventures. Unfortunately, we had to cut our retirement short when Mike's step-dad, Claude Madden, was in an auto accident. We went back to Florida to get him out of the hospital and ended up staying 1 1/2 years there to care for him. We had been living in the 5th wheel for the past 1 1/2 years in a place we didn't want to be and 5th wheel living lost its luster for us. So, in mid 2007, when he told us he was moving back to California and since we knew we didn't want to live in Florida, started looking for a place we wanted to settle down. We found that place in the small mountain town of Blairsville, GA. We purchased our home in November 2007 but since I had gone back to work and was still working, didn't make the move until April 2008. We love it here and are still learning all about our new home. We have gotten back into hiking and have enjoyed exploring the outdoors. We are now in the process of finishing off the basement of our home and putting in a garage. This fall was spectacular but we have found that we are loving all the seasons.
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