FAMILY REUNIONS AND HISTORY, OTHER TRAVEL ADVENTURES


FAMILY REUNIONS AND HISTORY, OTHER TRAVEL ADVENTURES

Patty and I have shared a handful of major travel experiences. We have not been as active as many of our relatives when it comes to travel beyond North America but managed to arrange for a few memorable vacations, especially when we were younger. Here follows a run-down of most of the important places where we travelled over the years, with some relevant family history. Of course, these accounts must be cursory, but each was an important occurrence in our lives. Some of our family vacations in North America are mixed in with the family reunions chronologically. *Schedule of Park Family Reunions* Years ago, our family used to plan family reunions in the summers, every five years, hosted by various family members. In 1981, we gathered in Wildwood Bluff near Poynette, Wisconsin for the wedding of Robert and Barbara. In 1986 in Kitchener, Ontario, we visited sister Betty’s daughter Jennifer, her husband Brian and their kids Leta and Michael. The 1991 reunion in Cupertino, California, was hosted by brother Douglas and his wife, Ruth, and their children, Kevin, Renee and Donavon. In 1996 the family gathered in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia at Betty and Charlie’s ocean cottage on the Bay of Fundy. In 2001, James and I (with plenty of help from other family members) invited everyone to Minneapolis, Minnesota. 2006 brought us all to Antioch, California, in the SF Bay area, where Douglas’ sons Kevin, Donavon and their families live. In 2011, Douglas’ daughter Renee and her husband Dan and their children invited us all to Grand Haven, Michigan. In 2016, we were back in Madison, Wisconsin where Robert and Barbara and the Wisconsin family members served as the hosts. Each reunion will be mentioned in more detail later. Photos from each of these reunions can be found in the parkscrapbook.us website using this series of clicks: Photography, The People Galleries, Reunions (Groups row). *1981 PARK FAMILY REUNION* This was our first one, held in Lodi, WI near Wildwood Bluff. Robert and Barbara were married with everyone at the reunion as guests. Many family members from nearby states attended. Robert’s young sons Robin and Mischa were there, as was Casey, Barbara’s daughter. The wedding took place outdoors at Barbara’s new home in Wildwood Bluff, a housing development three miles from Poynette. The front yard was quite roomy for the ceremony and crowd of attendees. *1985:* Camping our way to California and back. Jonathan was 7 and Daniel was 5. This was our first major camping experience as a family. We made an extensive list of what we needed to bring along, and it all barely fit into and on top of our station wagon. Setting-up and taking-down at the camp grounds was time-consuming, but we got into the swing of things with practice. The places we visited on the way to California began with the Badlands and the Black Hills in South Dakota. We drove through Wyoming, where after dark, on a nearly empty highway, we almost ran out of gas. When a tiny bump in the road called Muddy Gap appeared around the bend, we were greatly relieved to find that its only gas station/store was still open. This was no chain gas station; it had a single pump with no brand name on it. It was a rustic, rickety building with odd giftshop knick-knacks for sale. They labeled the outhouses Cowboys and Cowgirls. In Utah we camped in a state park overlooking Salt Lake City. The next day we drove beside the Great Salt Lake (with some cars stuck in the white mud beside the highway); and into Nevada. Our first stop in California was beautiful Lake Tahoe, where the scenery was breathtaking and the morning air was chilly. (Daniel danced around on the picnic table at the campground to get warm. Later, when describing our time there, he explained that he was so cold he wore “two pairs of pants and two pairs of socks and two pairs of shirts.”) Then we went on to Douglas and Ruth’s time-share cottage in Capitola on the Pacific coast near Monterrey. We all enjoyed our reprieve from sleeping in the tent. This was followed by a couple of fun days at Douglas and Ruth’s home in Cupertino, which featured something we had never experienced before: a back yard swimming pool. We met up with Douglas and Ruth’s sons Donavon and Kevin (and Kevin’s two young girls, Jennifer and Carrie). Douglas and Ruth’s daughter Renee, her husband Jerry, and their sweet twin toddlers, Cherise and Danielle joined in. What a pool party! We were also able to visit Marine World, where the star of the show was a trained orca named “the Amazing Vica!” This orca loved to do special tricks for the crowd. It was excessively hot in the sunbaked seats, and I was grateful for the loan of Jerry’s straw sunhat. The next day, Douglas brought us to see Sequoia National Park, covered with the tallest trees we had ever seen. Douglas and Ruth were wonderful hosts! Next, we continued to Arizona to a campground at Lake Havasu, where we were amazed to watch an ice cube melt in my hand in seconds. A genuine bridge from London, England was reconstructed there. After roasting in the blistering heat of Lake Havasu (in the middle of the night the temp dropped to 92), we were relieved to arrive at our next destination: the cool hills of Pine Lakes (near Prescott) to visit with Grandma Evelyn at her summer trailer. Sadly, Grandpa Wilford had died the previous February, and we all missed him very much. Our visit was helpful to Evelyn, who was still adjusting to life without her beloved husband. We were able to pay short visits to the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, and the Petrified Forest. After a few days, we continued along our way through New Mexico, camping out in the country-side, where the coyotes howled in the distance at night. Very cool—chilling, even. Then we made our way back home. We recorded almost daily cassette messages about our adventures to share with Patty’s parents back in Minneapolis. The 1986 PARK FAMILY REUNION* in Kitchener, Ontario,* was hosted by Betty’s daughter Jennifer and Jennifer’s husband Brian Scott (and their kids Leta and Michael). Betty and Charlie were there from New Brunswick with Linda and Tony, as were most of Douglas’ children from Michigan and California. Evelyn attended from Arizona, accompanied by her new husband, Erkki, a physician from Duluth whom Evelyn had known professionally for decades. (Our father Wilford, who died in February 1985, was Evelyn’s first husband.) This was the first time that most family members had a chance to meet Erkki. The reunion took place behind and inside Brian and Jennifer’s home. There was plenty of room to socialize in the Scotts’ big beautiful back yard, complete with an above-ground swimming pool. Patty and I attended with our boys Jonathan and Daniel. The big swimming pool was a real hit for them. The group also visited a large nearby park where all the kids went nuts on the play equipment. During a general conversation with some of the out-of-towners, someone observed that it was pretty hot that day, with the temp up to about 86 degrees. Charlie commented that “I’m surprised we’re not all dead!” Of course, as a Canadian, he was thinking in Celsius. Inside on the couch, using a video tape recorder, each family group took turns talking about what’s been happening since the last reunion. Those captured slices of history might be valuable in the future. The year 1987 (when Jonathan was nine and Daniel was seven) saw the four of us traveling west again by car, in a loosely tandem trip with Robert, Barbara, and their three boys (Robin, age 11, Mischa, age 8, and Ian, age 4)—this time to see Yellowstone Park. We camped out together and saw all the famous tourist attractions, including Old Faithful, the Yellowstone Falls, Mammoth Hot Springs, several active bubbling spots, and other strange natural occurrences from under the ground. It was rainy some of the time, and that slowed us down a little. But we had great fun as a group, marveling at the exotic scenes, enhanced by the excitement, fascination, and high spirits of the kids. There were plenty of wildlife sightings, moose, deer, elk, bears, bison, lots of unusual rodents, like the chipmunks, ground squirrels, bunnies and prairie dogs. The scenery was fantastic. We traveled from place to place together, following the National Park Guide. Choosing which of the highlights to hit was a daily joint decision. We camped out in different places as we moved around. Daniel and Jonathan were invited to sleep inside Robert and Barbara’s VW minivan, where some basic cushioning and blankets were available. All five boys were in the van together overnight, as I recall. Patty and I had a tent, but the sleep pads we brought had “mysteriously” ended up in the van. Thus, Patty and I slept in sleeping bags in the tent on a bed of gravel and rocks at least once. Pine needles were employed at other camp sites, and they were quite comfortable. One memorable bad-luck event was the failure of our station wagon’s alternator. This caused some difficulties as our car struggled into the nearest town that had a car repair service. It took all morning to get there because our car could only run on battery power. Robert and family drove along behind us, because we had to stop every fifteen minutes or so to recharge our battery with Robert’s VW van, enabling us to drive on a few miles further. We made it to the service station around noon. Thank you, Robert! It was lucky that the repair place was able to order a new alternator from a supplier a few miles away. Our car was fixed and back on the road by nightfall. We must have done some sightseeing while the repairs were getting done. I had never seen a geyser before in my life, and as far as I know, I have not seen one since, but Old Faithful lived up to its name, gushing up into the air within a few minutes of its scheduled time. A bonus for the kids was watching the marmots come out of their holes next to the Old Faithful parking area. They were completely used to people and seemed pretty plump. Another major sight we visited was Mammoth Hot Springs, a huge array of white blocks and shelves cascading down a hill, created over a couple of hundred thousand years or more. The hot, steaming spring water spewing from the ground deposited minerals which built up over time. It looked like the earth had split open, but this natural wonder had come out instead of lava. After a too-brief time together, by prearrangement we four peeled off to head to Seattle to visit our friend Sarah Barnes, who we knew from when she lived in Minneapolis. Robert, Barbara, Robin, Mischa, and Ian all stayed around Yellowstone a while longer. It was an exciting and eventful vacation trip together. The four of us traveled on through Montana and Idaho, camping in some spectacular wild settings on the way. We arrived in Seattle to stay with Sarah and see the sights of this very colorful city. Sarah also brought us on a wonderful side-trip to the Pacific coast of the Olympic Peninsula, (to the west of Seattle). We stayed in a seaside cottage by a tiny town called LaPush, in a sparsely-populated, wild part of the state. I captured a very unusual photograph of the “sea stack” formations out in the ocean beside the LaPush coastal beach. This photo won an award in a competition sponsored by a local photo shop in Minneapolis. It was exciting to see it in its ten-foot-long blow-up on the shop’s wall for three months. 1989: All four of us took another car trip that summer, this time heading east. Our first stop was Wisconsin to visit Robert, Barbara, and the boys. After a couple of days we headed to southern Ontario, stopping by again in Kitchener to see Jennifer, Brian, and their kids. After that, we headed to Niagara Falls, staying at a campground on the Canadian side. The giant waterfalls were exciting to see. Another water-related thrill was a terrific fountain display with colored lights after dark, even if at one point the water splashed on us where we were standing. In eastern NY state, we dropped in on Fort Ticonderoga (beside Lake Champlain), where historical battles were fought during the Revolutionary War. We moved on to New Brunswick, just past New England, to visit Betty and Charlie at their place in Fredericton, right beside the lovely St. John’s River. Betty treated us to a half day visit to a tourist spot called King's Landing, a beautiful colonial-era village set up with costumed residents, authentically-reconstructed buildings, and fully-functional farms. The village included period shops for different services the towns-people needed, such as a blacksmith shop and leather tanning operation, with a store that sold leather goods. Then we took in Prince Edward Island with beautiful scenery, rolling red hills, and a red clay shore line. There we visited the House of Green Gables, where Lucy Maude Montgomery’s famous book was written. We then headed back to Sand Hills, Ontario, on the north shore of Lake Erie—a fun place to camp and jump around on huge mountains of sand. At the Sand Hills we were able to visit with Uncle Clifford and his wife Lillian, and Uncle Wesley too, all of whom lived close by. Clifford and Wesley hit it off, having remembered each other from the days when the Leonard and Park families used to see each other often. That was before our mother, Catherine, died. Finally, we stopped to visit Dan and Renee in Michigan. We would see them again at future reunions, especially the 2011 reunion in Grand Haven, Michigan, which they and their children hosted. 1991 PARK FAMILY REUNION: This was the year that Douglas, Ruth and their kids and grandkids hosted our family reunion in the San Franscico Bay area where many of them lived. To add variety and adventure to our travels, we decided that some of those traveling from Minnesota and Wisconsin would ride the Amtrack train to California while others went by car. Those who took a car and camped out along the route: Robert, James, and Ian. Those who opted to travel by train to California: Warren, Patty, with Jonathan and Daniel, and Barbara traveling along with Robin, and Mischa. The train traveled through the Montana mountains, including some remarkable scenery in the foothills to the Rockies. The train we took brought us to Portland Oregon, where we switched to another train going south to San Franscico. Douglas was there at the station to pick us up. The family reunion took place at Douglas and Ruth's place in Cupertino. The setting was very Californian: their lovely one-story rambler home with the backyard swimming pool (first experienced in 1985) filled with family members of all ages. The spread of food and drinks the California parks supplied was truly remarkable. Evelyn and Erkki traveled from Arizona to attend. All of the California family members were there. One of the highlights of the visit was a day spent on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. All of us gathered in the morning to take the ferry across the water to the island. Lots of other people were traveling to Angel Island too, so the ferry was crowded. Douglas and Ruth and company had arranged for a huge picnic lunch there. We used five of six picnic tables to accommodate the whole crowd of family members. There are about three miles of trails and road which we hiked freely, an we toss the baseball around and played badminton. Erkki had a funny time trying to hit the birdie with his racket to serve it—he would drop the birdie and swing at it, but his right hand (with the racket) was always late. Kevin arrived on the island by sailboat (his own) and he spent a little time giving people 15-minute rides around the island. The trip we took was with James, with Kevin and his 12-year-old grand-daughter Carrie, who piloted the sailboat on her own into the Angel Island landing pier. I remember James and I standing up near the front watching the approach to shore, and Carrie, at the wheel, further behind us, called out, “…Um, could you guys sit down so I can see where we're going?” We got out of the way. We took a tour of San Francisco taking in the sights, like Coit Tower, Lombard Street (with its downhill twists and sharp turns), taking the elevator built entirely of plexiglass hanging on the side of the Fairmont Hotel. Douglas and Ruth treated us all to a fantastic restaurant meal on Fisherman’s Wharf, at one of the famous landmarks. 1991 On to Seattle A few days later we traveled by train to Seattle to visit Sarah who had moved to a large home (with two roommates) in the hills overlooking downtown. Exciting things we did on this visit included a wonderful sailboat ride into the Seattle harbor, right below the sky scrapers (provided by Sarah and our friend Bill with his perfect sailboat), and an elevator trip to the top of the Seattle Space Needle (605 feet tall). The restaurant food and the view on all sides were spectacular. Then we got onto the train again to head home (traveling past the very spot along the shore where we were the day before, where all the sailboats were moored). We glided past Glacier National Park (real mountains) and all the way home by train in a day and a half. After just over a week's absence, we disembarked with our luggage and walked straight to our car which had safely been parked the whole week in the St. Paul train station's parking lot. 1996 PARK FAMILY REUNION: Parrsboro, Nova Scotia. This family reunion was tinged with sadness for our family—it was the first reunion after Jonathan’s death in August of 1995. So, our immediate traveling group was now just three--Patty, Daniel and I. We flew to Boston and met up with Robert, Barbara, and family, and with Catherine (who had just gotten married to Ben Vail the December before and now lived in Cleveland). Then we all set out to do some sightseeing. Patty, Daniel, Catherine, and I traveled in a rental car, while Robert and all had their own car, which they had driven from Wisconsin. We visited Boston’s historical sites including where the rebels against Britain, near the beginning of the Revolutionary War, threw all that tea into the harbor. And the Old North Church where the lantern lights were set to indicate that the British Were Coming by land, which led to Paul Revere’s famous ride. It was an exciting first for nearly all of us. The next day, our small parade of cars drove all the way to Acadia National Park on the coast of Maine to see those famous huge rugged rock formations and great Atlantic waves. At one spot along the rocky coast, called Thunder Hole, when the tide is right, the incoming waves make a huge, booming sound inside a hollowed-out rock chamber. After that, we headed north and crossed the Canadian border. We drove through New Brunswick and into Nova Scotia where we gathered at Betty and Charlie’s Parrsboro ocean college on the Bay of Fundy (where the highest tides of the world take place twice a day). Three generations of Park family members gathered by the sea overlooking twin islands called the Brothers. When the tide was out, we climbed all around the tide pools and the exposed rocks along the bottom of the Bay of Fundy. Later, once the tide began to rise, we gravitated to the stairway that led up to Betty and Charlie’s property, where a huge, wonderful meal awaited us. Several members of the youngest generation took turns swinging wildly in the hammock outside the cottage. People really enjoyed the amazing, wild scenery, the fresh air, and all the comradery. Betty’s grandson Jason had built a sweet path through the woods beside his grandma’s place which led to a small scenic waterfall nearby. Some people explored the hilly and twisty path all the way to the falls. In a funny close call, Catherine came within an eyelash of locking our only rental car key in the car’s trunk. First, she opened up the trunk to get a sweater and placed the car key safely in the sweater pocket. A little later she decided she didn’t need the sweater anymore. She opened the trunk, automatically put the key back in the sweater pocket, folded and placed the sweater inside the trunk, and was swinging the trunk closed when it occurred to her that the key was still in the sweater pocket. Close call! (The closest locksmith would have had to travel from about 150 miles away, which sounds expensive.) Several travelers from America rented two nearby cottages in Parrsboro which provided fairly comfortable sleeping arrangements for ten people. Cozy. Douglas and Ruth drove their giant RV to the event, which provided room to sleep for all their grandchildren who attended and a couple of their grown kids. We visited some of the local landmarks, including a light house a few miles away which featured a huge mound of black rocks to climb down to the shore. When the tide started to come in, it ran like a river over the rocks and kept rising steadily. We all needed to get to higher ground in kind of a hurry. We stayed in Parrsboro for three days. Then we drove all the way back to Boston to return the rental car and fly home again—Catherine back to Ohio, and the three of us, plus James, back to Minneapolis. What a fine adventure! Later, in the fall of 1996, the year after Jonathan’s death, Patty, Daniel and I, with Patty’s mom, Nona, took a week’s vacation to the north shore of Lake Superior. It is wild and very scenic territory with multiple state parks that feature wonderful waterfalls. We stayed at a classic old resort near Grand Marais and took side trips to see various sights. It was a good way for us all to help heal after the loss of Jonathan. 2001 PARK FAMILY REUNION: This was the year that Patty and I, with the help of Daniel and Jamie, and James and Rita, hosted the family reunion in Minneapolis. Among the highlights was a trip to the Guthrie Theater to see Amadeus, a play about Mozart and his rivalry with another composer named Salieri. (This story had been made into a fine Hollywood movie in 1984). Another highlight of the reunion took place on the chain of lakes in Minneapolis. One morning (of three or four days we were together) we all met at the boat dock at Lake Calhoun (now named Bde Makaska) and rented several canoes. We locals led the out-of-towners by canoe through the Chain of Lakes all the way to the end. Some of us were not great at canoeing, but we all managed to keep the canoes headed in the right direction. We paddled from the Lake Calhoun boat docks through the connecting canal to Lake of the Isles, then off west to the next scenic canal, which led to Lake Cedar. From there we slowly paddled to the north end of Cedar, where there is a one-hundred-foot “tunnel” created by a bridge overhead (with the curved cement roof about four feet above us). We paddled on to the final “lake” in the chain—Brownie Lake, which is really more of a pond. We had a great time. There is a special photo of all of us who took the trip lined up in a row by the shore at Brownie with our paddles raised. (display this photo). Douglas and his grandkids stayed in Lake of the Isles in a rented row boat, and waited the half hour for the rest of us to reappear on our way back to Lake Calhoun. We all made it slowly and safely back to the Calhoun boat dock—total time about an hour and a half. Douglas was very familiar with the whole scene having been to all those lakes before. As a young man when he lived with us on Humboldt Avenue, he often used the family canoe, kept on a rack beside Lake of the Isles. After that adventure, we all got back into our cars and paraded around the Kenwood neighborhood where we used to live. We paused in front of 1804 Humboldt Avenue, our home for twelve years. Then we traveled past several beautiful homes and scenic spots facing Lake of the Isles and Lake Harriet, not far away. After that little tour, we all made our way to Minnehaha Park, where Minnehaha Falls is located. (The rushing creek flows into the Mississippi River a half mile downstream from there.) Patty and Rita had a fine picnic lunch set up on tables in the park, ready to eat. When we’d finished, we took our traditional group photo at the park. It was a great setting to wind up a memorable reunion. 2006 PARK FAMILY REUNION: We returned to California again for our every-five-year gathering, hosted this time, by Kevin and Donavon and families. Patty and I found a place to stay at a chain hotel out in the country about fifteen miles from Kevin and Melissa’s in Antioch. Our reunion began at their lovely house with a big back yard filled with colorful grape vines all around. The reunion’s planned activities included a half-day tour of several wineries in the adjacent Napa Valley and a visit to Jack London State Park, a few miles from Santa Rosa. The famed adventure author (“Call of the Wild” and “White Fang” from the early 1900s) began building his home there many years before. The park was wild and beautiful, and it was fascinating to view the shell of Jack London’s spacious home, which burned down in 1913 before it was even finished. Only the stone wall ruins were left. Out in the parking lot that day we found a tiny lizard crawling on the ground, which one of the younger folks picked up. I pointed out, “Now we won’t need to think about supper.” Our group gathered one day at the large swimming pool behind a house that belonged to relatives of Melissa. Some of us sat around the edge while others played active competitive games in the water. It was a treat to see so many family members having such a great time. 2011 PARK FAMILY REUNION: Our tradition of reuniting every five years continued in Grand Haven, Michigan, hosted by Dan and Renee and their four daughters (twins Danielle and Charise, Christina, and Chelsea). Grand Haven is a wonderful little city right on the shore of Lake Michigan. Patty and I, Daniel, Jamie and baby Malcolm rented the main floor of a duplex for a few days. It was not far from the canal that serves as the main waterway to and from the harbor. Catherine and Ben, with their sons, eight-year-old Isaac and four-year-old Elias rented the upper floor of the duplex. The back yard was big enough to set up a badminton net, and we had some wild games involving Daniel, Jamie, Robin, Mischa, Ian, Robert, James and me. On occasion we had about six birdies in the air at once (not an official game), laughing our heads off. In that same yard, we set up chairs to have gatherings with other reunion visitors, including the children of Renee and Dan, and sometimes Kevin, Donavon and families. Once, when I was sitting on a flimsy plastic chair at the outdoor table with several family members, one of the chair legs snapped and I suddenly disappeared from view. Everyone was surprised, and Daniel nobly got me up off the turf and gave me his chair. Later that week we bought a replacement chair from the local equivalent of a Target store. Betty and Jennifer came from Canada to be with us. We had several gatherings at various parks and at Dan and Renee’s home. Everything was hopping all the time. Donavon’s son Jonathan brought his guitar and did some fine singing and playing. Dan and Renee had some sporting equipment set up in the back yard. Various board games were played around the dining room table at Dan and Renee’s with many combinations of competitors participating. We remain a wild and crazy family. One night after dark, we all gathered with hundreds of others from the city and beyond to watch a special computer-programed waterfall show with hundreds of colored lights in constant motion. Everything was on display on a hillside across the canal from the viewing area. The music to accompany the show was sometimes dramatic and heavy, and sometimes light and lyrical, depending on how the lights were being displayed. It was a remarkable display, with water spraying constantly in visually stunning patterns. On one day we all gathered at a wonderful park (a sizeable nature reserve) a few miles away from the city. Many games of frisbee and badminton were played that day among the young men and women. The tables in the park’s main meeting room were again loaded with great things to eat. We took our traditional group photo outside that building. On the final day, we had a marvelous picnic lunch at a park beside the canal. It was a popular destination, and our group needed three or four picnic tables. In order to claim them, Dan got up at 6:00 AM and nabbed them for our party. They would have been taken by others during the day without Dan’s and other family members’ due diligence. There was a generous spread of food all across those tables, and we crowded together to devour it, (I bet there were left-overs for a week in Dan and Renee’s fridge.) Some people wanted rides in Dan and Renee’s power boat, which sped out into Lake Michigan quite a way from shore. 2016 PARK FAMILY REUNION: For our final reunion, we returned to Wisconsin, this time to Robert and Barbara’s in Madison—about thirty miles from our first reunion (1981) in Lodi. Casey and Patty provided planning and organizational assistance. In attendance: Robert and Barbara and offspring from Wisconsin, California, and Alaska; most of Douglas’ offspring and their families (arriving from California, Michigan and Wisconsin.); Catherine and family from Ohio; all of the Minneapolis family members, including James and Rita; Patty and me, and Daniel and family. Robert and Barbara’s lovely home was the site of several gatherings. It was great to reconnect with everyone and to meet new little family members. The food was fabulous! And I remember that Jonathan Park (Donavon’s son) played his guitar for us--with me playing along on the electric piano Barbara had won in a raffle. We came up with some interesting collaborative music on the spot. For one of our main events, our group gathered at Blue Mound State Park for an all-afternoon outing. A picnic spread (organized by Patty, Daniel, Jamie, and me), badminton, frisbee, hiking and exploring the park kept us all busy. It was here that we snapped our famous group photo, which included (lined up by height) all of Wilford Park’s descendants who were in attendance. After Blue Mound, some of us attended the outdoor American Players Theater production of an Oscar Wilde play in Spring Green. On the final evening, we all gathered at the Great Dane restaurant for a fine send-off meal. Another memorable reunion was brought to a close. Some of us have crossed paths since then, during our two California weddings for Robin and Evelyn, and Mischa and Evan. Non-Reunion Vacations, Sometimes Overseas Here follows a run-down of most of the important places where we travelled over the years, with some relevant family history. Of course, these accounts must be cursory, but each was an important occurrence in our lives. Finland A major event in my international travel experience was a special trip to Finland with Evelyn in summer of 1998. Patty was not along, due to work responsibilities. Evelyn, who was already quite old and frail, wanted to pay my way and have my help with her mobility issues, logistics at the airports, etc. I spent nearly my entire time easing things for her as she visited (for the last time) the relatives and friends she was very attached to from her younger days. I spent time with her brother, Kaarlo, whom I had met years earlier when Wilford and Evelyn still lived on Edmund Boulevard in Minneapolis. Also, I met and became acquainted with his five children, and their spouses and children. I accompanied Evelyn and Kaarlo to their parents’ graves in Helsinki. I was able to take a bus ride into downtown Helsinki with one of Evelyn’s teenaged grand-nieces, who showed me the sights and explained everything in nearly flawless English (which everyone learns in school). I learned a lot about the old government buildings still used every day about three blocks from the main harbor, including the country’s capital building where the parliament meets. I took a fine tour of the harbor on a sight-seeing boat, with this charming relative of Evelyn’s. She knew lots about the history of the military defense fort in the outer reaches of the bay, and other landmarks. On shore, I noticed a couple of deadbeat old guys who were drunk and hanging out in the city park. I commented on the police who were trying their best to keep these oldsters from bothering the passers-by. She told me that the police were always around to keep the troublemakers from getting too creepy. One time when I was visiting a CD store on my own, near where Evelyn and I were staying with one of her nieces in Turku, I was tasked with the responsibility of hunting, on Daniel’s behalf, for any interesting hip-hop CD they had to offer in Finnish, or any foreign language. At the CD store, which was a younger-generation haven, with odd music blasting on the store’s sound system, the young clerk asked me something in Finnish, and I had to apologize by saying, “I only know how to speak English.” The guy shifted immediately. “Okay, what are you looking for?” I told him a bit about what Daniel had asked me to find. The clerk showed me the right section and went back to the counter. I bought two CDs that day: an orchestral CD with music by contemporary classical Finnish composers (in a bin of on-sale items the regular clientele didn’t like), and a hip-hop CD by a guy who chanted rhythmically in French. I spent a lot of time trying to be attentive to Evelyn’s mood swings—she was cheerful and cooperative most of the time, but sometimes she turned maudlin and morose, especially when I was alone with her. This visit to Finland was a difficult time for her. I had many entertaining meals with Evelyn and her relatives. We ate at several nieces’ or nephews’ places pretty much every evening. Each member of the next generation (teen-age and up) was charming and talkative and wanted to know about America. Sometimes we would go out to eat at an amazing restaurant somewhere with many of her relatives and friends at once. I remember being at a place where a couple of Evelyn’s nephews wanted to pay for the crayfish platter dish. Three of us were given special bibs with drawings of crayfish to keep us from staining our clothes. All the crayfish and other sea food was terrific. This trip was an exciting time for me. Finland was enchanting, and sight-seeing was terrific. The people visits were hugely important for Evelyn, who needed to say good bye to her treasured nieces and nephews and their families, and other friends. She did not expect to be able to return to Finland, where she had lived for much of her childhood and young adulthood. I was glad to be able to help enable this important transition for her. She died the following August in Arizona. I have a photo gallery for you to visit which documents our vacation trip to Finland. Within our family website (parkscrapbook.us), look for Photography, then Places We’ve Been, and click on Finland. England and Scotland During the summer of 2000, I traveled to England and Scotland with Patty and Daniel. Daniel was twenty at the time. It was an amazing and eye-opening trip for us all. So much history and tradition around every corner. We were part of a Trafalgar bus tour group which went to many well-chosen sites in cities and towns throughout England and Scotland. The whole route was carefully planned to catch the major highlights of the territory with enough free time to do some exploration on our own. The tour guide was a scholar from Cambridge University. Our bus tour began outside of London at Hampton Court, a famous country retreat for Britain’s royal families over the centuries. Our next stop was at Stonehenge, the ancient human-made giant rock circle. Here are a few of the other highlights. Salisbury, with its amazing cathedral. Loue, a sea coast pirates’ cove in the Middle Ages; Plymouth, in southwest England where the Mayflower set sail in 1620. Glastonbury, famous for burial grounds of very old royalty, c800 AD; Bath, Roman ruins where aristocrats enjoyed bathing in below-ground pools; Tintern Abby, a ruined medieval abbey situated on the Welsh bank of the River Wye. It has inspired many writers and artists. Wedgewood, known for fine traditional elegant dishes; Chester, a medieval city with a fine cathedral from the 1100’s. The whole city is surrounded by a centuries-old moat; Scotland’s Loch Lohman, as mentioned in the lovely old song; Loch Ness in Scotland, famous for the elusive Loch Ness monster; Culloden, the site of a pivotal battle between England and Scotland; Isle of Skye, fantastic scenery as seen from narrow and rustic roads. Scotland’s Balmoral Castle (favorite retreat Queen Elizabeth II’s, with fantastic gardens everywhere); Edenborough, where the ancient castle on the hill is the highest building, right next to the centuries-old Royal Mile; York, (back in England) with fine Middle Ages buildings and cathedrals, some with truly huge stained glass windows; Coventry, where the ruins of a cathedral destroyed during World War II are preserved as a memorial to the cruel, devastating bombing the Germans wrought on this city. A beautiful new cathedral is built next to it. Oxford, founded in 1096, where some buildings from the 1400s still stand and where many of history’s incredible scholars studied. Stratford Upon Avon, where Shakespeare’s birthplace is preserved and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is still in operation. Then, back to London to see Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace, where members of the royal family live. We watched the changing of the guard, viewed by thousands on a regular basis, acted out by hundreds of nervous teen-agers in colorful and ornate military unforms. We visited the fantastic public garden built by Queen Victoria to honor Prince Albert, along with Albert Hall—London’s most famous performance auditorium, still in use. The British Museum was an amazing sight, filled with ancient Egyptian artifacts and the famous “Elgin Marbles” which were removed (stolen?) from ancient Greece’s Acropolis. The trip was entirely awe-inspiring and memorable, with the tour planners working hard to include as many famous historical sites as possible. The hotels the tour chose were all wonderful, including a couple of very old inns out in the countryside. Everything everywhere was charming and picturesque, with history constantly engulfing us. This was the trip of a life-time for us, and it will always be a precious memory. There are several photos in the collection representing England and Scotland in the Places We’ve Been section of the family website’s Photography archive. Spain and Portugal The other major European vacation we went on was an autumn 2002 Rick Steves-sponsored tour of the major sights of Spain and Portugal. Patty, Daniel, and I took the tour bus through many fascinating areas of those countries, led by a very knowledgeable tour guide who knew a mind-boggling amount about everything we visited. Here is a partial list of the cities and their highlights that we toured. There were Moorish palaces, fortresses and public buildings from centuries earlier, when the Moors controlled Spain. . Madrid featured the Royal Palace’s ornately decorative rooms where the Spanish royal family has lived for centuries. The royal burial crypts a little way out of town which included many of the kings of Spain over hundreds of years. Madrid’s Prado Art Museum has several of the most important paintings in art history. Segovia is where an amazingly well-preserved Roman aqueduct from around the year 200 AD is a major feature, along with a lovely cathedral of modest size. About half of the way to Segovia, northwest of Madrid, we visited the famous carved-out mountain memorial for fallen soldiers ordered by Generalissimo Franciso Franco, WWII dictator of Spain. Toledo includes an area that dates back to the middle ages that is almost perfectly preserved from the 13th and 14th centuries. The roads there are so narrow that a single car takes up nearly the entire width of the street—people need to press their backs against the walls to let a car go by. Granada is the home of the world-famous Moorish palace, the Alhambra, and an exciting, very high rampart from which people can see for miles. The cathedral has many ornate painted statues. Seville is the home of a massive, staggeringly ornate and lofty cathedral built centuries ago. The ceiling must be about 100 feet high, with phenomenally decorative alters that feature scores of hand-painted religious statues, and an art gallery of mediaeval religious art. Also, the Giralda tower next to the cathedral is over 300 feet tall, with an amazing vista to view for those who climb all the way to the top. Ronda (a small city built upon a huge, nearly thousand-foot-high plateau, with one old bridge between the two sections. That night we stayed in an old hotel nearby built on a hilltop which looked tame and dull from the front of the building, but whose back balconies on every room opened up onto an amazing lovely valley of olive groves and shrubbery. On the way west to Portugal, we stopped off at Cadiz which showcased some beautiful sea coast scenery, and another fine cathedral. The bus took us on to Portugal’s Algarve coast where giant waves and huge vistas of the Atlantic Ocean dominated the scene. Nearby, we stayed a couple of days in a smallish fishing village with a wonderful beach. Evora, Portugal had extensive Roman ruins, which remain largely intact, and an ancient underground crypt under a monastery where hundreds of skulls from the monks who lived there were racked in decorative arrangements. Lisbon, with its own royal palace, ancient landmarks and wonderful seacoast views, featured a very impressive, newly-built monument to the Portuguese world explorers. There is a very high tower that overlooks the main public plaza below. Colorful photos to check out are inside the parkscrapbook.us website, within the Places We’ve Been section of the Photography collection. (Spain and Portugal galleries) Eastern United States In the summer of 2002, Patty, Daniel, Nona (Patty’s mother), and I took a vacation to the eastern US, stopping off in exciting historical places. We included Colonial Williamsburg in Viginia, a 300-acre historical park with hundreds of original and recreated buildings from pre-Revolutionary War times, including the Virginia State House where Thomas Jefferson debated other state legislators. The Governor’s Palace was the large and elegant home of the British lord who ruled the colony of Virginia before the Revolutionary War. We then drove on to western North Carolina and followed the Blue Ridge Parkway to the Biltmore House, in Ashville NC, a 250-room mansion where the wealthy Vanderbilt family lived. We traveled on to various very old plantations in Charleston, South Carolina and Savanah, Georgia. Wonderful history surrounded us the whole way. Photos from this vacation can be found in the Places We’ve Been collection on the website. (Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia gallery) Mexico Patty worked for the Center for Global Education (CGE) at Augsburg University for several years. CGE’s annual all-staff retreats were sometimes held at Augsburg’s international study sites. One such retreat occurred in 2003 in Cuernavaca, Mexico, about two hours from Mexico City. I was able to travel there for a week with Patty, and I even signed up for classes at a neighboring school for visitors to study the Spanish language. Patty and I stayed at a B and B near the Augsburg study center. I learned a lot about the culture and was able to pick up some Spanish skills while Patty attended her Augsburg meetings. The highlight of the week was on the last day of the trip when the husband of one of the students at the Spanish language school arranged for a surprise. An entire Mariachi band began to play as they paraded into the yard and provided a delightful outdoor concert in mid-afternoon. Wearing wonderful costumes, the highly skilled singers and instrumental musicians entertained us for an hour in the sunny, grass-covered outdoor plaza at the school. Patty and the Augsburg staff were able to attend, too. An exciting side-trip our group took, towards the end of our stay, brought us to the ancient ruins of Xochicalco, outside of Cuernavaca, built by the Mayan Indians starting in about 650 CE. Many very-well-preserved ruins are spread out over several acres of land, some with intricate carved images on the walls. There are several photos from the Cuernavaca trip on our family website, within the Places We've Been section. (Mexico gallery) Alaska In the summer of 2004, Patty, Nona and I took a vacation trip to Alaska. We rented a car in Anchorage and drove to Mount Denali National Park. At the entrance, we took a sight-seeing bus ride into the park, traveling to within probably 70 miles of Mt. Denali, the tallest mountain in North America. I remember looking out of a giant window at the main lodge, which displayed many of the fine mountains that surrounded us on all sides. There were marks painted on the window which labeled the mountains peaks. One mark was set much higher than all the others on the glass. This was Mt Denali, towering above the other peaks by a surprising margin. It seemed to have its own weather system surrounding it. What a sight. The bus ride in and out of the park (about an hour and a half each way) was filled with sightings of grizzlies, elk, moose, wolves, big-horn sheep, mountain goats and plenty of other wildlife. The entire Park is kept in as natural a state as possible. Again, the Places We've Been photo section is worth viewing. (Alaska gallery) Seattle, WA; Vancouver, Victoria and Vancouver Island, BC In 2007, Patty and I organized a fun trip with Nona, Daniel, and Jamie to visit Washington state’s Puget Sound, including Seattle. After seeing the sights, we stayed at a great B and B north of the city, then crossed over the Canadian border and visited Vancouver and Victoria BC for a few days, staying at other fine B and Bs in Vancouver. The scenery was amazing. We were all able to eat dinner at a great restaurant overlooking the harbor in Vancouver from the top of the 550-foot-tall sight-seeing tower. The restaurant revolved very slowly on a giant flat wheel, so the 360-degree view was constantly changing. Downtown Vancouver features a whole section of the city historically known as Gastown, where steam power ran many things in the early days. One thing that was still functioning was a huge and visually stunning, glass-paneled, steam-driven clock (with the mechanical workings on display) –what a sight to see and hear at noon. Patty, Nona and I also took in the University of British Columbia Anthropology Museum which featured a few giant 40-foot totem poles created by BC native tribes. This museum also had on display a famous carved wooden art work by Canadian indigenous artist Bill Ried, named Raven and the First Men. This sculpture was pictured for years on the back of the Canadian $20 bill. We enjoyed great food and beautiful sights. Our final B and B was run by an older British gentleman who told us great stories at the breakfast table. Several photos are on the website. (British Columbia gallery) Mid-USA Trip In 2009, Patty, Nona, and I arranged a car trip from Minneapolis to Milwaukee, then on to Chicago and Galena, Illinois before returning home. Patty’s parents had lived in Milwaukee for a while when they were young. Nona had stayed in touch with a special friend from that time, and the three of us had a delightful visit with her. We also visited the Milwaukee Art Museum on the shore of Lake Michigan, with its distinctive design. Twice a day, huge mechanical “gull wings” gradually spread out from the museum’s roof. (See timelapse) One remarkable side trip we took, on the way to Chicago, was a visit to a fantastic many-acre display of wonderful flowers and plants in interesting arrangements. It is located near the shore of Lake Michigan as people drive toward downtown Chicago, probably about twenty miles north. It’s called the Chicago Botanic Garden. We drove on to Chicago, which was full of wonderful highlights, especially Grant Park downtown with the odd waterfall fountains, the huge shiny bean-shaped art piece, called Cloud Gate, and a wonderful outdoor concert performance space. We attended a terrific orchestra concert there in the evening. The Chicago Art Museum, also on the waterfront downtown, was an exciting experience. We stayed at a B and B in beautiful Oak Park just outside Chicago where many Frank Lloyd Wright-designed houses are still available to visit. After seeing more sights in Chicago, we travelled west to Galena, Illinois where many perfectly-preserved historic homes are open to visitors. Many of them are now B & Bs. It was a memorable trip for us all. Norway Patty and I were able to participate in an Augsburg University-sponsored group tour to Norway in June 2010. Some of Patty’s staff colleagues and faculty acquaintances also participated. The trip was organized through an international partnership with Diakonhjemmet University in Oslo. We were able to visit a number of important buildings in Oslo, including the new opera house on the waterfront and the Oslo City Hall where the Nobel Prize presentations take place each year. We also took a walking tour of the city’s downtown area. This was followed by a bus and train adventure into the mountains where we visited a wild animal farm which featured several species native to Norway. Goats ran among us as we walked from place to place. We then took a train, which ascended through the highest parts of the mountains (about 4000 feet), where the tiny towns we traveled past still had snow on the ground everywhere. The train descended, following a winding track through some of Norway’s most amazing scenery. We reached a fiord where we took an all-afternoon boat ride through mountains that spilled forth too many wonderful waterfalls to count. A bus met us and brought us to the hotel for the night in a ski resort city where many lovely paintings hung on the walls everywhere, featuring some of Norway’s most remarkable natural scenes. While in Bergen, we took the funicular to the top of a hill overlooking the city and admired the midnight sun at the top of the mountain, still visible in the late evening. In the morning, we took a bus and eventually a ferryboat to other seacoast sights, and finally Stavanger. Both cities had centuries-old churches with remarkable painted pulpits from the Middle Ages and earlier. This was a delightful and transporting trip for us. We have a large collection of photos worth looking over on the Photography/Places We’ve Been part of the parkscrapbook.us website. (Norway gallery) Wisconsin and California (for three weddings) In June 2015 we took a trip to a state park in central Wisconsin, near Madison, for the wedding of Robert and Barbara’s son Ian to Layla Coleman. It was a delightful outdoor wedding with an outstanding reception and a dance band to wind up the day. Later that same year, in October 2015, we flew to California’s bay area for the wedding of Robert’s oldest, Robin, to Evelyn Kroeker. We rented a B&B in Oakland (near where Mischa and Evan live in Berkely). Mischa treated Patty and me to a great tour of the Berkley area, including the beautiful botanical gardens. That evening, we rode into downtown San Franscico with Daniel and Jamie and kids to a reception hall for the big event. This was another exceptional celebration, with many family members and friends, a dazzling array of food and a fine live jazz band. Three years later, in December of 2018, we returned to the Bay area for the wedding of Robert’s middle son, Mischa, to Evan Wilson. Patty and I stayed in a B&B in San Jose, about six blocks from Robin and Evelyn’s house. A festive dinner on the day before the wedding was held at a night club in downtown S.F., a terrific place called Drake’s—wonderful food and a good place to connect with others from Mischa and Evan’s family and friends. The next day, a Saturday, we all gathered with scores of friends and relatives for the outdoor ceremony, followed by dinner and dancing at the reception hall of a beautiful park with a lake near Mischa and Evan’s condo in Oakland. Photos for these weddings by several people will be available for viewing on the Park Family website, within the photography section. Visits to Canadian Cousins Our Mother, Catherine Edith Lenard Park, had four siblings. She was the oldest of her generation. Here are their birth years: Catherine, 1911; Etheridge, 1912; Evelyn, 1916; Alice, 1917; Wesley, 1920. All of my Leonard cousins stayed in Canada, and we have visited with them occasionally over the years. Mother’s siblings’ offspring consist of three Leonards, four Hendersons, and five Cowans. Three of these Canadian cousins are no longer with us. In 2004, Patty and I took a car trip through Ontario, where our family originated, to visit our Leonard relatives. We stopped by Doris Cowan’s place out in the country west of Toronto, and we were surprised by a full family reunion of the Cowan family, including Aunt Alice, who was quite elderly and memory-compromised, with all five of her children in attendance. It was the first time in twenty years that the siblings had all been together at the same time. Cousin Hector brought along his wife. All the other Cowans were unmarried. After a great meal and a few enjoyable hours of catching-up, Patty and I hit the road again and headed toward Ottawa, where three of the four Henderson cousins lived. For about three days, we stayed at a nice B&B in Ottawa near their homes, and enjoyed visiting with Mark (and his wife and daughters), and Alastaire and Hildegarde. Judith, who died in 2025, was the only cousin I regularly corresponded with. She was a fine professional writer with a very quick, creative and eccentric mind, and it was always a joy to hear what she thought about various political and world-condition issues. While in Ottawa, we were delighted to again see Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Eric, who were living in a care center in Ottawa. I was able to help out with a doctor’s visit for Evelyn by serving as the one with a car. Alastaire and Hildegarde went along to talk over things with their mom’s physician. We had a nice meal at the care center with everyone. Aunt Evelyn had always been the Leonard relative that reminded me the most of my mother. I was careful to remain in contact with her for thirty years via letters, including during her waning years, where her letters became more disjunct. She was a wonderful letter-writer, and always had insightful and interesting things to write about over the years. She stopped writing once her mind failed her during the two years she lived at their care center. Uncle Eric lived at the same care center, in a unit designed for a different level of care, but they were in daily contact with each other. Two years later, in 2006, Robert, Barbara and I drove together to a special Leonard family reunion in Port Rowan, Ontario on Lake Ontario, where our now-widowed Uncle Wesley lived. We and several other Leonard family members were able to attend a private memorial service for Wesley’s wife Irene while we were there. A memorial marker for her was placed on the ground near the back door of their house, which is located a little way out of town from Port Rowan. Wesley and Irene’s son Craig was the family member who had traveled the furthest to attend. He lives in Japan where he works as an English/Japanese translator. Also in attendance for this occasion were several of the Cowan and Henderson cousins who we had seen two years earlier. Added to the list was Jay Henderson who made the trip from his home in Thunder Bay, Ontario, on Lake Superior (right near the eastern tip of Minnesota). We all had a wonderful meal at a popular restaurant by the harbor in Port Rowan. During our visit, Robert, Barbara, and I were able to help Craig do some sorting and hauling out of things from Wesley’s house that needed to be tossed. The final day of the reunion was on Easter Sunday, where all the family members attended Uncle Wesley’s church. We witnessed a special dedication of a new four-foot-tall stained-glass window on a main stairway at church. It was contributed by Uncle Wesley in honor of Irene—a long-time, well-loved member of the church community. Wesley’s son Craig participated fully in the honorary ceremonies. The new window had already been installed and looked lovely with the sun pouring through it. A wonderful plaque dedicated to Irene was placed in front of the window. Maritime Province Visits In 1972, Betty divorced Murray and four years later married a colorful and brilliant bridge designer named Charlie. In later decades, I visited the Maritimes several times with my family, including visits to see Betty and Charlie in Fredericton, New Brunswick. They also generously invited us to stay at their cottage near Parrsboro, Nova Scotia. The cottage is built on a bluff overlooking the Bay of Fundy, where we could witness the highest tides in the world. Our extended family held a reunion in the summer of 1996 at Betty and Charlie's cottage. We also took side trips to Prince Edward Island, a beautiful province just offshore from New Brunswick, where the St. Lawrence River empties into the Atlantic. This is where the famous book Anne of Green Gables was set. My wife Patty and I, our son Daniel, his wife Jamie, and their kids Malcolm and Sadie, all visited Betty at the cottage two more times as a family. Daughter Catherine and her sons (Isaac and Elias) also visited as Betty's guests during around 2012. Charlie passed on in January 2012 from cancer, and Betty died in 2021 at age 89. Jennifer and Linda, and their husbands decided not to keep the cottage any longer. Neither family lived close enough to manage its maintenance. This lovely sea cottage was always a memorable place for us to stay. Many colorful photos and great memories remain.

Patty and I have shared a handful of major travel experiences. We have not been as active as many of our relatives when it comes to travel beyond North America but managed to arrange for a few memorable vacations, especially when we were younger.

Here follows a run-down of most of the important places where we travelled over the years, with some relevant family history. Of course, these accounts must be cursory, but each was an important occurrence in our lives. Some of our family vacations in North America are mixed in with the family reunions chronologically.

Schedule of Park Family Reunions

Years ago, our family used to plan family reunions in the summers, every five years, hosted by various family members.

In 1981, we gathered in Wildwood Bluff near Poynette, Wisconsin for the wedding of Robert and Barbara.

In 1986 in Kitchener, Ontario, we visited sister Betty’s daughter Jennifer, her husband Brian and their kids Leta and Michael.

The 1991 reunion in Cupertino, California, was hosted by brother Douglas and his wife, Ruth, and their children, Kevin, Renee and Donavon.

In 1996 the family gathered in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia at Betty and Charlie’s ocean cottage on the Bay of Fundy.

In 2001, James and I (with plenty of help from other family members) invited everyone to Minneapolis, Minnesota.

2006 brought us all to Antioch, California, in the SF Bay area, where Douglas’ sons Kevin, Donavon and their families live.

In 2011, Douglas’ daughter Renee and her husband Dan and their children invited us all to Grand Haven, Michigan.

In 2016, we were back in Madison, Wisconsin where Robert and Barbara and the Wisconsin family members served as the hosts.

Each reunion will be mentioned in more detail later. Photos from each of these reunions can be found in the parkscrapbook.us website using this series of clicks: Photography, The People Galleries, Reunions (Groups row).

1981 PARK FAMILY REUNION This was our first one, held in Lodi, WI near Wildwood Bluff. Robert and Barbara were married with everyone at the reunion as guests. Many family members from nearby states attended. Robert’s young sons Robin and Mischa were there, as was Casey, Barbara’s daughter. The wedding took place outdoors at Barbara’s new home in Wildwood Bluff, a housing development three miles from Poynette. The front yard was quite roomy for the ceremony and crowd of attendees.

1985: Camping our way to California and back. Jonathan was 7 and Daniel was 5. This was our first major camping experience as a family. We made an extensive list of what we needed to bring along, and it all barely fit into and on top of our station wagon. Setting-up and taking-down at the camp grounds was time-consuming, but we got into the swing of things with practice. The places we visited on the way to California began with the Badlands and the Black Hills in South Dakota. We drove through Wyoming, where after dark, on a nearly empty highway, we almost ran out of gas. When a tiny bump in the road called Muddy Gap appeared around the bend, we were greatly relieved to find that its only gas station/store was still open. This was no chain gas station; it had a single pump with no brand name on it. It was a rustic, rickety building with odd giftshop knick-knacks for sale. They labeled the outhouses Cowboys and Cowgirls.

In Utah we camped in a state park overlooking Salt Lake City. The next day we drove beside the Great Salt Lake (with some cars stuck in the white mud beside the highway); and into Nevada. Our first stop in California was beautiful Lake Tahoe, where the scenery was breathtaking and the morning air was chilly. (Daniel danced around on the picnic table at the campground to get warm. Later, when describing our time there, he explained that he was so cold he wore “two pairs of pants and two pairs of socks and two pairs of shirts.”)

Then we went on to Douglas and Ruth’s time-share cottage in Capitola on the Pacific coast near Monterrey. We all enjoyed our reprieve from sleeping in the tent. This was followed by a couple of fun days at Douglas and Ruth’s home in Cupertino, which featured something we had never experienced before: a back yard swimming pool. We met up with Douglas and Ruth’s sons Donavon and Kevin (and Kevin’s two young girls, Jennifer and Carrie). Douglas and Ruth’s daughter Renee, her husband Jerry, and their sweet twin toddlers, Cherise and Danielle joined in. What a pool party! We were also able to visit Marine World, where the star of the show was a trained orca named “the Amazing Vica!” This orca loved to do special tricks for the crowd. It was excessively hot in the sunbaked seats, and I was grateful for the loan of Jerry’s straw sunhat. The next day, Douglas brought us to see Sequoia National Park, covered with the tallest trees we had ever seen. Douglas and Ruth were wonderful hosts!

Next, we continued to Arizona to a campground at Lake Havasu, where we were amazed to watch an ice cube melt in my hand in seconds. A genuine bridge from London, England was reconstructed there. After roasting in the blistering heat of Lake Havasu (in the middle of the night the temp dropped to 92), we were relieved to arrive at our next destination: the cool hills of Pine Lakes (near Prescott) to visit with Grandma Evelyn at her summer trailer. Sadly, Grandpa Wilford had died the previous February, and we all missed him very much. Our visit was helpful to Evelyn, who was still adjusting to life without her beloved husband. We were able to pay short visits to the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, and the Petrified Forest. After a few days, we continued along our way through New Mexico, camping out in the country-side, where the coyotes howled in the distance at night. Very cool—chilling, even. Then we made our way back home. We recorded almost daily cassette messages about our adventures to share with Patty’s parents back in Minneapolis.

The 1986 PARK FAMILY REUNION in Kitchener, Ontario, was hosted by Betty’s daughter Jennifer and Jennifer’s husband Brian Scott (and their kids Leta and Michael). Betty and Charlie were there from New Brunswick with Linda and Tony, as were most of Douglas’ children from Michigan and California. Evelyn attended from Arizona, accompanied by her new husband, Erkki, a physician from Duluth whom Evelyn had known professionally for decades. (Our father Wilford, who died in February 1985, was Evelyn’s first husband.) This was the first time that most family members had a chance to meet Erkki.

The reunion took place behind and inside Brian and Jennifer’s home. There was plenty of room to socialize in the Scotts’ big beautiful back yard, complete with an above-ground swimming pool. Patty and I attended with our boys Jonathan and Daniel. The big swimming pool was a real hit for them. The group also visited a large nearby park where all the kids went nuts on the play equipment. During a general conversation with some of the out-of-towners, someone observed that it was pretty hot that day, with the temp up to about 86 degrees. Charlie commented that “I’m surprised we’re not all dead!” Of course, as a Canadian, he was thinking in Celsius.

Inside on the couch, using a video tape recorder, each family group took turns talking about what’s been happening since the last reunion. Those captured slices of history might be valuable in the future.

The year 1987 (when Jonathan was nine and Daniel was seven) saw the four of us traveling west again by car, in a loosely tandem trip with Robert, Barbara, and their three boys (Robin, age 11, Mischa, age 8, and Ian, age 4)—this time to see Yellowstone Park. We camped out together and saw all the famous tourist attractions, including Old Faithful, the Yellowstone Falls, Mammoth Hot Springs, several active bubbling spots, and other strange natural occurrences from under the ground. It was rainy some of the time, and that slowed us down a little. But we had great fun as a group, marveling at the exotic scenes, enhanced by the excitement, fascination, and high spirits of the kids.

There were plenty of wildlife sightings, moose, deer, elk, bears, bison, lots of unusual rodents, like the chipmunks, ground squirrels, bunnies and prairie dogs. The scenery was fantastic. We traveled from place to place together, following the National Park Guide. Choosing which of the highlights to hit was a daily joint decision. We camped out in different places as we moved around. Daniel and Jonathan were invited to sleep inside Robert and Barbara’s VW minivan, where some basic cushioning and blankets were available. All five boys were in the van together overnight, as I recall. Patty and I had a tent, but the sleep pads we brought had “mysteriously” ended up in the van. Thus, Patty and I slept in sleeping bags in the tent on a bed of gravel and rocks at least once. Pine needles were employed at other camp sites, and they were quite comfortable.

One memorable bad-luck event was the failure of our station wagon’s alternator. This caused some difficulties as our car struggled into the nearest town that had a car repair service. It took all morning to get there because our car could only run on battery power. Robert and family drove along behind us, because we had to stop every fifteen minutes or so to recharge our battery with Robert’s VW van, enabling us to drive on a few miles further. We made it to the service station around noon. Thank you, Robert! It was lucky that the repair place was able to order a new alternator from a supplier a few miles away. Our car was fixed and back on the road by nightfall. We must have done some sightseeing while the repairs were getting done.

I had never seen a geyser before in my life, and as far as I know, I have not seen one since, but Old Faithful lived up to its name, gushing up into the air within a few minutes of its scheduled time. A bonus for the kids was watching the marmots come out of their holes next to the Old Faithful parking area. They were completely used to people and seemed pretty plump.

Another major sight we visited was Mammoth Hot Springs, a huge array of white blocks and shelves cascading down a hill, created over a couple of hundred thousand years or more. The hot, steaming spring water spewing from the ground deposited minerals which built up over time. It looked like the earth had split open, but this natural wonder had come out instead of lava.

After a too-brief time together, by prearrangement we four peeled off to head to Seattle to visit our friend Sarah Barnes, who we knew from when she lived in Minneapolis. Robert, Barbara, Robin, Mischa, and Ian all stayed around Yellowstone a while longer. It was an exciting and eventful vacation trip together.

The four of us traveled on through Montana and Idaho, camping in some spectacular wild settings on the way. We arrived in Seattle to stay with Sarah and see the sights of this very colorful city. Sarah also brought us on a wonderful side-trip to the Pacific coast of the Olympic Peninsula, (to the west of Seattle). We stayed in a seaside cottage by a tiny town called LaPush, in a sparsely-populated, wild part of the state. I captured a very unusual photograph of the “sea stack” formations out in the ocean beside the LaPush coastal beach. This photo won an award in a competition sponsored by a local photo shop in Minneapolis. It was exciting to see it in its ten-foot-long blow-up on the shop’s wall for three months.

1989: All four of us took another car trip that summer, this time heading east. Our first stop was Wisconsin to visit Robert, Barbara, and the boys. After a couple of days we headed to southern Ontario, stopping by again in Kitchener to see Jennifer, Brian, and their kids. After that, we headed to Niagara Falls, staying at a campground on the Canadian side. The giant waterfalls were exciting to see. Another water-related thrill was a terrific fountain display with colored lights after dark, even if at one point the water splashed on us where we were standing. In eastern NY state, we dropped in on Fort Ticonderoga (beside Lake Champlain), where historical battles were fought during the Revolutionary War. We moved on to New Brunswick, just past New England, to visit Betty and Charlie at their place in Fredericton, right beside the lovely St. John’s River. Betty treated us to a half day visit to a tourist spot called King's Landing, a beautiful colonial-era village set up with costumed residents, authentically-reconstructed buildings, and fully-functional farms. The village included period shops for different services the towns-people needed, such as a blacksmith shop and leather tanning operation, with a store that sold leather goods. Then we took in Prince Edward Island with beautiful scenery, rolling red hills, and a red clay shore line. There we visited the House of Green Gables, where Lucy Maude Montgomery’s famous book was written. We then headed back to Sand Hills, Ontario, on the north shore of Lake Erie—a fun place to camp and jump around on huge mountains of sand. At the Sand Hills we were able to visit with Uncle Clifford and his wife Lillian, and Uncle Wesley too, all of whom lived close by. Clifford and Wesley hit it off, having remembered each other from the days when the Leonard and Park families used to see each other often. That was before our mother, Catherine, died. Finally, we stopped to visit Dan and Renee in Michigan. We would see them again at future reunions, especially the 2011 reunion in Grand Haven, Michigan, which they and their children hosted.

1991 PARK FAMILY REUNION: This was the year that Douglas, Ruth and their kids and grandkids hosted our family reunion in the San Franscico Bay area where many of them lived. To add variety and adventure to our travels, we decided that some of those traveling from Minnesota and Wisconsin would ride the Amtrack train to California while others went by car. Those who took a car and camped out along the route: Robert, James, and Ian. Those who opted to travel by train to California: Warren, Patty, with Jonathan and Daniel, and Barbara traveling along with Robin, and Mischa. The train traveled through the Montana mountains, including some remarkable scenery in the foothills to the Rockies. The train we took brought us to Portland Oregon, where we switched to another train going south to San Franscico. Douglas was there at the station to pick us up.

The family reunion took place at Douglas and Ruth's place in Cupertino. The setting was very Californian: their lovely one-story rambler home with the backyard swimming pool (first experienced in 1985) filled with family members of all ages. The spread of food and drinks the California parks supplied was truly remarkable. Evelyn and Erkki traveled from Arizona to attend. All of the California family members were there.

One of the highlights of the visit was a day spent on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. All of us gathered in the morning to take the ferry across the water to the island. Lots of other people were traveling to Angel Island too, so the ferry was crowded. Douglas and Ruth and company had arranged for a huge picnic lunch there. We used five of six picnic tables to accommodate the whole crowd of family members. There are about three miles of trails and road which we hiked freely, an we toss the baseball around and played badminton. Erkki had a funny time trying to hit the birdie with his racket to serve it—he would drop the birdie and swing at it, but his right hand (with the racket) was always late.

Kevin arrived on the island by sailboat (his own) and he spent a little time giving people 15-minute rides around the island. The trip we took was with James, with Kevin and his 12-year-old grand-daughter Carrie, who piloted the sailboat on her own into the Angel Island landing pier. I remember James and I standing up near the front watching the approach to shore, and Carrie, at the wheel, further behind us, called out, “…Um, could you guys sit down so I can see where we're going?” We got out of the way.

We took a tour of San Francisco taking in the sights, like Coit Tower, Lombard Street (with its downhill twists and sharp turns), taking the elevator built entirely of plexiglass hanging on the side of the Fairmont Hotel. Douglas and Ruth treated us all to a fantastic restaurant meal on Fisherman’s Wharf, at one of the famous landmarks.

1991 On to Seattle

A few days later we traveled by train to Seattle to visit Sarah who had moved to a large home (with two roommates) in the hills overlooking downtown. Exciting things we did on this visit included a wonderful sailboat ride into the Seattle harbor, right below the sky scrapers (provided by Sarah and our friend Bill with his perfect sailboat), and an elevator trip to the top of the Seattle Space Needle (605 feet tall). The restaurant food and the view on all sides were spectacular.

Then we got onto the train again to head home (traveling past the very spot along the shore where we were the day before, where all the sailboats were moored). We glided past Glacier National Park (real mountains) and all the way home by train in a day and a half. After just over a week's absence, we disembarked with our luggage and walked straight to our car which had safely been parked the whole week in the St. Paul train station's parking lot.

1996 PARK FAMILY REUNION: Parrsboro, Nova Scotia. This family reunion was tinged with sadness for our family—it was the first reunion after Jonathan’s death in August of 1995. So, our immediate traveling group was now just three--Patty, Daniel and I. We flew to Boston and met up with Robert, Barbara, and family, and with Catherine (who had just gotten married to Ben Vail the December before and now lived in Cleveland). Then we all set out to do some sightseeing. Patty, Daniel, Catherine, and I traveled in a rental car, while Robert and all had their own car, which they had driven from Wisconsin. We visited Boston’s historical sites including where the rebels against Britain, near the beginning of the Revolutionary War, threw all that tea into the harbor. And the Old North Church where the lantern lights were set to indicate that the British Were Coming by land, which led to Paul Revere’s famous ride. It was an exciting first for nearly all of us. The next day, our small parade of cars drove all the way to Acadia National Park on the coast of Maine to see those famous huge rugged rock formations and great Atlantic waves. At one spot along the rocky coast, called Thunder Hole, when the tide is right, the incoming waves make a huge, booming sound inside a hollowed-out rock chamber.

After that, we headed north and crossed the Canadian border. We drove through New Brunswick and into Nova Scotia where we gathered at Betty and Charlie’s Parrsboro ocean college on the Bay of Fundy (where the highest tides of the world take place twice a day). Three generations of Park family members gathered by the sea overlooking twin islands called the Brothers. When the tide was out, we climbed all around the tide pools and the exposed rocks along the bottom of the Bay of Fundy. Later, once the tide began to rise, we gravitated to the stairway that led up to Betty and Charlie’s property, where a huge, wonderful meal awaited us. Several members of the youngest generation took turns swinging wildly in the hammock outside the cottage. People really enjoyed the amazing, wild scenery, the fresh air, and all the comradery. Betty’s grandson Jason had built a sweet path through the woods beside his grandma’s place which led to a small scenic waterfall nearby. Some people explored the hilly and twisty path all the way to the falls.

In a funny close call, Catherine came within an eyelash of locking our only rental car key in the car’s trunk. First, she opened up the trunk to get a sweater and placed the car key safely in the sweater pocket. A little later she decided she didn’t need the sweater anymore. She opened the trunk, automatically put the key back in the sweater pocket, folded and placed the sweater inside the trunk, and was swinging the trunk closed when it occurred to her that the key was still in the sweater pocket. Close call! (The closest locksmith would have had to travel from about 150 miles away, which sounds expensive.)

Several travelers from America rented two nearby cottages in Parrsboro which provided fairly comfortable sleeping arrangements for ten people. Cozy. Douglas and Ruth drove their giant RV to the event, which provided room to sleep for all their grandchildren who attended and a couple of their grown kids. We visited some of the local landmarks, including a light house a few miles away which featured a huge mound of black rocks to climb down to the shore. When the tide started to come in, it ran like a river over the rocks and kept rising steadily. We all needed to get to higher ground in kind of a hurry.

We stayed in Parrsboro for three days. Then we drove all the way back to Boston to return the rental car and fly home again—Catherine back to Ohio, and the three of us, plus James, back to Minneapolis. What a fine adventure!

Later, in the fall of 1996, the year after Jonathan’s death, Patty, Daniel and I, with Patty’s mom, Nona, took a week’s vacation to the north shore of Lake Superior. It is wild and very scenic territory with multiple state parks that feature wonderful waterfalls. We stayed at a classic old resort near Grand Marais and took side trips to see various sights. It was a good way for us all to help heal after the loss of Jonathan.

2001 PARK FAMILY REUNION: This was the year that Patty and I, with the help of Daniel and Jamie, and James and Rita, hosted the family reunion in Minneapolis.

Among the highlights was a trip to the Guthrie Theater to see Amadeus, a play about Mozart and his rivalry with another composer named Salieri. (This story had been made into a fine Hollywood movie in 1984).

Another highlight of the reunion took place on the chain of lakes in Minneapolis. One morning (of three or four days we were together) we all met at the boat dock at Lake Calhoun (now named Bde Makaska) and rented several canoes. We locals led the out-of-towners by canoe through the Chain of Lakes all the way to the end. Some of us were not great at canoeing, but we all managed to keep the canoes headed in the right direction. We paddled from the Lake Calhoun boat docks through the connecting canal to Lake of the Isles, then off west to the next scenic canal, which led to Lake Cedar. From there we slowly paddled to the north end of Cedar, where there is a one-hundred-foot “tunnel” created by a bridge overhead (with the curved cement roof about four feet above us). We paddled on to the final “lake” in the chain—Brownie Lake, which is really more of a pond. We had a great time. There is a special photo of all of us who took the trip lined up in a row by the shore at Brownie with our paddles raised. (display this photo). Douglas and his grandkids stayed in Lake of the Isles in a rented row boat, and waited the half hour for the rest of us to reappear on our way back to Lake Calhoun. We all made it slowly and safely back to the Calhoun boat dock—total time about an hour and a half. Douglas was very familiar with the whole scene having been to all those lakes before. As a young man when he lived with us on Humboldt Avenue, he often used the family canoe, kept on a rack beside Lake of the Isles.

After that adventure, we all got back into our cars and paraded around the Kenwood neighborhood where we used to live. We paused in front of 1804 Humboldt Avenue, our home for twelve years. Then we traveled past several beautiful homes and scenic spots facing Lake of the Isles and Lake Harriet, not far away. After that little tour, we all made our way to Minnehaha Park, where Minnehaha Falls is located. (The rushing creek flows into the Mississippi River a half mile downstream from there.) Patty and Rita had a fine picnic lunch set up on tables in the park, ready to eat. When we’d finished, we took our traditional group photo at the park. It was a great setting to wind up a memorable reunion.

2006 PARK FAMILY REUNION: We returned to California again for our every-five-year gathering, hosted this time, by Kevin and Donavon and families. Patty and I found a place to stay at a chain hotel out in the country about fifteen miles from Kevin and Melissa’s in Antioch. Our reunion began at their lovely house with a big back yard filled with colorful grape vines all around. The reunion’s planned activities included a half-day tour of several wineries in the adjacent Napa Valley and a visit to Jack London State Park, a few miles from Santa Rosa. The famed adventure author (“Call of the Wild” and “White Fang” from the early 1900s) began building his home there many years before. The park was wild and beautiful, and it was fascinating to view the shell of Jack London’s spacious home, which burned down in 1913 before it was even finished. Only the stone wall ruins were left. Out in the parking lot that day we found a tiny lizard crawling on the ground, which one of the younger folks picked up. I pointed out, “Now we won’t need to think about supper.”

Our group gathered one day at the large swimming pool behind a house that belonged to relatives of Melissa. Some of us sat around the edge while others played active competitive games in the water. It was a treat to see so many family members having such a great time.

2011 PARK FAMILY REUNION: Our tradition of reuniting every five years continued in Grand Haven, Michigan, hosted by Dan and Renee and their four daughters (twins Danielle and Charise, Christina, and Chelsea). Grand Haven is a wonderful little city right on the shore of Lake Michigan. Patty and I, Daniel, Jamie and baby Malcolm rented the main floor of a duplex for a few days. It was not far from the canal that serves as the main waterway to and from the harbor. Catherine and Ben, with their sons, eight-year-old Isaac and four-year-old Elias rented the upper floor of the duplex. The back yard was big enough to set up a badminton net, and we had some wild games involving Daniel, Jamie, Robin, Mischa, Ian, Robert, James and me. On occasion we had about six birdies in the air at once (not an official game), laughing our heads off. In that same yard, we set up chairs to have gatherings with other reunion visitors, including the children of Renee and Dan, and sometimes Kevin, Donavon and families. Once, when I was sitting on a flimsy plastic chair at the outdoor table with several family members, one of the chair legs snapped and I suddenly disappeared from view. Everyone was surprised, and Daniel nobly got me up off the turf and gave me his chair. Later that week we bought a replacement chair from the local equivalent of a Target store.

Betty and Jennifer came from Canada to be with us. We had several gatherings at various parks and at Dan and Renee’s home. Everything was hopping all the time. Donavon’s son Jonathan brought his guitar and did some fine singing and playing. Dan and Renee had some sporting equipment set up in the back yard. Various board games were played around the dining room table at Dan and Renee’s with many combinations of competitors participating. We remain a wild and crazy family.

One night after dark, we all gathered with hundreds of others from the city and beyond to watch a special computer-programed waterfall show with hundreds of colored lights in constant motion. Everything was on display on a hillside across the canal from the viewing area. The music to accompany the show was sometimes dramatic and heavy, and sometimes light and lyrical, depending on how the lights were being displayed. It was a remarkable display, with water spraying constantly in visually stunning patterns.

On one day we all gathered at a wonderful park (a sizeable nature reserve) a few miles away from the city. Many games of frisbee and badminton were played that day among the young men and women. The tables in the park’s main meeting room were again loaded with great things to eat. We took our traditional group photo outside that building.

On the final day, we had a marvelous picnic lunch at a park beside the canal. It was a popular destination, and our group needed three or four picnic tables. In order to claim them, Dan got up at 6:00 AM and nabbed them for our party. They would have been taken by others during the day without Dan’s and other family members’ due diligence. There was a generous spread of food all across those tables, and we crowded together to devour it, (I bet there were left-overs for a week in Dan and Renee’s fridge.) Some people wanted rides in Dan and Renee’s power boat, which sped out into Lake Michigan quite a way from shore.

2016 PARK FAMILY REUNION: For our final reunion, we returned to Wisconsin, this time to Robert and Barbara’s in Madison—about thirty miles from our first reunion (1981) in Lodi. Casey and Patty provided planning and organizational assistance.

In attendance: Robert and Barbara and offspring from Wisconsin, California, and Alaska; most of Douglas’ offspring and their families (arriving from California, Michigan and Wisconsin.); Catherine and family from Ohio; all of the Minneapolis family members, including James and Rita; Patty and me, and Daniel and family.

Robert and Barbara’s lovely home was the site of several gatherings. It was great to reconnect with everyone and to meet new little family members. The food was fabulous! And I remember that Jonathan Park (Donavon’s son) played his guitar for us--with me playing along on the electric piano Barbara had won in a raffle. We came up with some interesting collaborative music on the spot.

For one of our main events, our group gathered at Blue Mound State Park for an all-afternoon outing. A picnic spread (organized by Patty, Daniel, Jamie, and me), badminton, frisbee, hiking and exploring the park kept us all busy. It was here that we snapped our famous group photo, which included (lined up by height) all of Wilford Park’s descendants who were in attendance. After Blue Mound, some of us attended the outdoor American Players Theater production of an Oscar Wilde play in Spring Green.

On the final evening, we all gathered at the Great Dane restaurant for a fine send-off meal. Another memorable reunion was brought to a close. Some of us have crossed paths since then, during our two California weddings for Robin and Evelyn, and Mischa and Evan.

Non-Reunion Vacations, Sometimes Overseas

Finland

A major event in my international travel experience was a special trip to Finland with Evelyn in summer of 1998. Patty was not along, due to work responsibilities. Evelyn, who was already quite old and frail, wanted to pay my way and have my help with her mobility issues, logistics at the airports, etc. I spent nearly my entire time easing things for her as she visited (for the last time) the relatives and friends she was very attached to from her younger days. I spent time with her brother, Kaarlo, whom I had met years earlier when Wilford and Evelyn still lived on Edmund Boulevard in Minneapolis. Also, I met and became acquainted with his five children, and their spouses and children.

I accompanied Evelyn and Kaarlo to their parents’ graves in Helsinki. I was able to take a bus ride into downtown Helsinki with one of Evelyn’s teenaged grand-nieces, who showed me the sights and explained everything in nearly flawless English (which everyone learns in school). I learned a lot about the old government buildings still used every day about three blocks from the main harbor, including the country’s capital building where the parliament meets. I took a fine tour of the harbor on a sight-seeing boat, with this charming relative of Evelyn’s. She knew lots about the history of the military defense fort in the outer reaches of the bay, and other landmarks. On shore, I noticed a couple of deadbeat old guys who were drunk and hanging out in the city park. I commented on the police who were trying their best to keep these oldsters from bothering the passers-by. She told me that the police were always around to keep the troublemakers from getting too creepy.

One time when I was visiting a CD store on my own, near where Evelyn and I were staying with one of her nieces in Turku, I was tasked with the responsibility of hunting, on Daniel’s behalf, for any interesting hip-hop CD they had to offer in Finnish, or any foreign language. At the CD store, which was a younger-generation haven, with odd music blasting on the store’s sound system, the young clerk asked me something in Finnish, and I had to apologize by saying, “I only know how to speak English.” The guy shifted immediately. “Okay, what are you looking for?” I told him a bit about what Daniel had asked me to find. The clerk showed me the right section and went back to the counter. I bought two CDs that day: an orchestral CD with music by contemporary classical Finnish composers (in a bin of on-sale items the regular clientele didn’t like), and a hip-hop CD by a guy who chanted rhythmically in French.

I spent a lot of time trying to be attentive to Evelyn’s mood swings—she was cheerful and cooperative most of the time, but sometimes she turned maudlin and morose, especially when I was alone with her. This visit to Finland was a difficult time for her.

I had many entertaining meals with Evelyn and her relatives. We ate at several nieces’ or nephews’ places pretty much every evening. Each member of the next generation (teen-age and up) was charming and talkative and wanted to know about America. Sometimes we would go out to eat at an amazing restaurant somewhere with many of her relatives and friends at once. I remember being at a place where a couple of Evelyn’s nephews wanted to pay for the crayfish platter dish. Three of us were given special bibs with drawings of crayfish to keep us from staining our clothes. All the crayfish and other sea food was terrific.

This trip was an exciting time for me. Finland was enchanting, and sight-seeing was terrific. The people visits were hugely important for Evelyn, who needed to say good bye to her treasured nieces and nephews and their families, and other friends. She did not expect to be able to return to Finland, where she had lived for much of her childhood and young adulthood. I was glad to be able to help enable this important transition for her. She died the following August in Arizona. I have a photo gallery for you to visit which documents our vacation trip to Finland. Within our family website (parkscrapbook.us), look for Photography, then Places We’ve Been, and click on Finland.

England and Scotland

During the summer of 2000, I traveled to England and Scotland with Patty and Daniel. Daniel was twenty at the time. It was an amazing and eye-opening trip for us all. So much history and tradition around every corner. We were part of a Trafalgar bus tour group which went to many well-chosen sites in cities and towns throughout England and Scotland. The whole route was carefully planned to catch the major highlights of the territory with enough free time to do some exploration on our own. The tour guide was a scholar from Cambridge University.

Our bus tour began outside of London at Hampton Court, a famous country retreat for Britain’s royal families over the centuries. Our next stop was at Stonehenge, the ancient human-made giant rock circle.

Here are a few of the other highlights.

Salisbury, with its amazing cathedral. Loue, a sea coast pirates’ cove in the Middle Ages; Plymouth, in southwest England where the Mayflower set sail in 1620. Glastonbury, famous for burial grounds of very old royalty, c800 AD; Bath, Roman ruins where aristocrats enjoyed bathing in below-ground pools; Tintern Abby, a ruined medieval abbey situated on the Welsh bank of the River Wye. It has inspired many writers and artists.

Wedgewood, known for fine traditional elegant dishes; Chester, a medieval city with a fine cathedral from the 1100’s. The whole city is surrounded by a centuries-old moat; Scotland’s Loch Lohman, as mentioned in the lovely old song; Loch Ness in Scotland, famous for the elusive Loch Ness monster; Culloden, the site of a pivotal battle between England and Scotland; Isle of Skye, fantastic scenery as seen from narrow and rustic roads.

Scotland’s Balmoral Castle (favorite retreat Queen Elizabeth II’s, with fantastic gardens everywhere); Edenborough, where the ancient castle on the hill is the highest building, right next to the centuries-old Royal Mile; York, (back in England) with fine Middle Ages buildings and cathedrals, some with truly huge stained glass windows; Coventry, where the ruins of a cathedral destroyed during World War II are preserved as a memorial to the cruel, devastating bombing the Germans wrought on this city. A beautiful new cathedral is built next to it.

Oxford, founded in 1096, where some buildings from the 1400s still stand and where many of history’s incredible scholars studied. Stratford Upon Avon, where Shakespeare’s birthplace is preserved and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is still in operation.

Then, back to London to see Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace, where members of the royal family live. We watched the changing of the guard, viewed by thousands on a regular basis, acted out by hundreds of nervous teen-agers in colorful and ornate military unforms. We visited the fantastic public garden built by Queen Victoria to honor Prince Albert, along with Albert Hall—London’s most famous performance auditorium, still in use. The British Museum was an amazing sight, filled with ancient Egyptian artifacts and the famous “Elgin Marbles” which were removed (stolen?) from ancient Greece’s Acropolis.

The trip was entirely awe-inspiring and memorable, with the tour planners working hard to include as many famous historical sites as possible. The hotels the tour chose were all wonderful, including a couple of very old inns out in the countryside. Everything everywhere was charming and picturesque, with history constantly engulfing us. This was the trip of a life-time for us, and it will always be a precious memory. There are several photos in the collection representing England and Scotland in the Places We’ve Been section of the family website’s Photography archive.

Spain and Portugal

The other major European vacation we went on was an autumn 2002 Rick Steves-sponsored tour of the major sights of Spain and Portugal. Patty, Daniel, and I took the tour bus through many fascinating areas of those countries, led by a very knowledgeable tour guide who knew a mind-boggling amount about everything we visited. Here is a partial list of the cities and their highlights that we toured. There were Moorish palaces, fortresses and public buildings from centuries earlier, when the Moors controlled Spain. .

Madrid featured the Royal Palace’s ornately decorative rooms where the Spanish royal family has lived for centuries. The royal burial crypts a little way out of town which included many of the kings of Spain over hundreds of years. Madrid’s Prado Art Museum has several of the most important paintings in art history.

Segovia is where an amazingly well-preserved Roman aqueduct from around the year 200 AD is a major feature, along with a lovely cathedral of modest size. About half of the way to Segovia, northwest of Madrid, we visited the famous carved-out mountain memorial for fallen soldiers ordered by Generalissimo Franciso Franco, WWII dictator of Spain.

Toledo includes an area that dates back to the middle ages that is almost perfectly preserved from the 13th and 14th centuries. The roads there are so narrow that a single car takes up nearly the entire width of the street—people need to press their backs against the walls to let a car go by.

Granada is the home of the world-famous Moorish palace, the Alhambra, and an exciting, very high rampart from which people can see for miles. The cathedral has many ornate painted statues.

Seville is the home of a massive, staggeringly ornate and lofty cathedral built centuries ago. The ceiling must be about 100 feet high, with phenomenally decorative alters that feature scores of hand-painted religious statues, and an art gallery of mediaeval religious art. Also, the Giralda tower next to the cathedral is over 300 feet tall, with an amazing vista to view for those who climb all the way to the top.

Ronda (a small city built upon a huge, nearly thousand-foot-high plateau, with one old bridge between the two sections. That night we stayed in an old hotel nearby built on a hilltop which looked tame and dull from the front of the building, but whose back balconies on every room opened up onto an amazing lovely valley of olive groves and shrubbery.

On the way west to Portugal, we stopped off at Cadiz which showcased some beautiful sea coast scenery, and another fine cathedral.

The bus took us on to Portugal’s Algarve coast where giant waves and huge vistas of the Atlantic Ocean dominated the scene. Nearby, we stayed a couple of days in a smallish fishing village with a wonderful beach.

Evora, Portugal had extensive Roman ruins, which remain largely intact, and an ancient underground crypt under a monastery where hundreds of skulls from the monks who lived there were racked in decorative arrangements.

Lisbon, with its own royal palace, ancient landmarks and wonderful seacoast views, featured a very impressive, newly-built monument to the Portuguese world explorers. There is a very high tower that overlooks the main public plaza below. Colorful photos to check out are inside the parkscrapbook.us website, within the Places We’ve Been section of the Photography collection. (Spain and Portugal galleries)

Eastern United States

In the summer of 2002, Patty, Daniel, Nona (Patty’s mother), and I took a vacation to the eastern US, stopping off in exciting historical places. We included Colonial Williamsburg in Viginia, a 300-acre historical park with hundreds of original and recreated buildings from pre-Revolutionary War times, including the Virginia State House where Thomas Jefferson debated other state legislators. The Governor’s Palace was the large and elegant home of the British lord who ruled the colony of Virginia before the Revolutionary War. We then drove on to western North Carolina and followed the Blue Ridge Parkway to the Biltmore House, in Ashville NC, a 250-room mansion where the wealthy Vanderbilt family lived. We traveled on to various very old plantations in Charleston, South Carolina and Savanah, Georgia. Wonderful history surrounded us the whole way. Photos from this vacation can be found in the Places We’ve Been collection on the website. (Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia gallery)

Mexico

Patty worked for the Center for Global Education (CGE) at Augsburg University for several years. CGE’s annual all-staff retreats were sometimes held at Augsburg’s international study sites. One such retreat occurred in 2003 in Cuernavaca, Mexico, about two hours from Mexico City. I was able to travel there for a week with Patty, and I even signed up for classes at a neighboring school for visitors to study the Spanish language. Patty and I stayed at a B and B near the Augsburg study center. I learned a lot about the culture and was able to pick up some Spanish skills while Patty attended her Augsburg meetings. The highlight of the week was on the last day of the trip when the husband of one of the students at the Spanish language school arranged for a surprise. An entire Mariachi band began to play as they paraded into the yard and provided a delightful outdoor concert in mid-afternoon. Wearing wonderful costumes, the highly skilled singers and instrumental musicians entertained us for an hour in the sunny, grass-covered outdoor plaza at the school. Patty and the Augsburg staff were able to attend, too. An exciting side-trip our group took, towards the end of our stay, brought us to the ancient ruins of Xochicalco, outside of Cuernavaca, built by the Mayan Indians starting in about 650 CE. Many very-well-preserved ruins are spread out over several acres of land, some with intricate carved images on the walls. There are several photos from the Cuernavaca trip on our family website, within the Places We've Been section. (Mexico gallery)

Alaska

In the summer of 2004, Patty, Nona and I took a vacation trip to Alaska. We rented a car in Anchorage and drove to Mount Denali National Park. At the entrance, we took a sight-seeing bus ride into the park, traveling to within probably 70 miles of Mt. Denali, the tallest mountain in North America. I remember looking out of a giant window at the main lodge, which displayed many of the fine mountains that surrounded us on all sides. There were marks painted on the window which labeled the mountains peaks. One mark was set much higher than all the others on the glass. This was Mt Denali, towering above the other peaks by a surprising margin. It seemed to have its own weather system surrounding it. What a sight. The bus ride in and out of the park (about an hour and a half each way) was filled with sightings of grizzlies, elk, moose, wolves, big-horn sheep, mountain goats and plenty of other wildlife. The entire Park is kept in as natural a state as possible. Again, the Places We've Been photo section is worth viewing. (Alaska gallery)

Seattle, WA; Vancouver, Victoria and Vancouver Island, BC

In 2007, Patty and I organized a fun trip with Nona, Daniel, and Jamie to visit Washington state’s Puget Sound, including Seattle. After seeing the sights, we stayed at a great B and B north of the city, then crossed over the Canadian border and visited Vancouver and Victoria BC for a few days, staying at other fine B and Bs in Vancouver. The scenery was amazing. We were all able to eat dinner at a great restaurant overlooking the harbor in Vancouver from the top of the 550-foot-tall sight-seeing tower. The restaurant revolved very slowly on a giant flat wheel, so the 360-degree view was constantly changing.

Downtown Vancouver features a whole section of the city historically known as Gastown, where steam power ran many things in the early days. One thing that was still functioning was a huge and visually stunning, glass-paneled, steam-driven clock (with the mechanical workings on display) –what a sight to see and hear at noon. Patty, Nona and I also took in the University of British Columbia Anthropology Museum which featured a few giant 40-foot totem poles created by BC native tribes. This museum also had on display a famous carved wooden art work by Canadian indigenous artist Bill Ried, named Raven and the First Men. This sculpture was pictured for years on the back of the Canadian $20 bill. We enjoyed great food and beautiful sights. Our final B and B was run by an older British gentleman who told us great stories at the breakfast table. Several photos are on the website. (British Columbia gallery)

Mid-USA Trip

In 2009, Patty, Nona, and I arranged a car trip from Minneapolis to Milwaukee, then on to Chicago and Galena, Illinois before returning home. Patty’s parents had lived in Milwaukee for a while when they were young. Nona had stayed in touch with a special friend from that time, and the three of us had a delightful visit with her. We also visited the Milwaukee Art Museum on the shore of Lake Michigan, with its distinctive design. Twice a day, huge mechanical “gull wings” gradually spread out from the museum’s roof. (See timelapse)

One remarkable side trip we took, on the way to Chicago, was a visit to a fantastic many-acre display of wonderful flowers and plants in interesting arrangements. It is located near the shore of Lake Michigan as people drive toward downtown Chicago, probably about twenty miles north. It’s called the Chicago Botanic Garden.

We drove on to Chicago, which was full of wonderful highlights, especially Grant Park downtown with the odd waterfall fountains, the huge shiny bean-shaped art piece, called Cloud Gate, and a wonderful outdoor concert performance space. We attended a terrific orchestra concert there in the evening. The Chicago Art Museum, also on the waterfront downtown, was an exciting experience. We stayed at a B and B in beautiful Oak Park just outside Chicago where many Frank Lloyd Wright-designed houses are still available to visit. After seeing more sights in Chicago, we travelled west to Galena, Illinois where many perfectly-preserved historic homes are open to visitors. Many of them are now B & Bs. It was a memorable trip for us all.

Norway

Patty and I were able to participate in an Augsburg University-sponsored group tour to Norway in June 2010. Some of Patty’s staff colleagues and faculty acquaintances also participated. The trip was organized through an international partnership with Diakonhjemmet University in Oslo. We were able to visit a number of important buildings in Oslo, including the new opera house on the waterfront and the Oslo City Hall where the Nobel Prize presentations take place each year. We also took a walking tour of the city’s downtown area. This was followed by a bus and train adventure into the mountains where we visited a wild animal farm which featured several species native to Norway. Goats ran among us as we walked from place to place. We then took a train, which ascended through the highest parts of the mountains (about 4000 feet), where the tiny towns we traveled past still had snow on the ground everywhere.

The train descended, following a winding track through some of Norway’s most amazing scenery. We reached a fiord where we took an all-afternoon boat ride through mountains that spilled forth too many wonderful waterfalls to count. A bus met us and brought us to the hotel for the night in a ski resort city where many lovely paintings hung on the walls everywhere, featuring some of Norway’s most remarkable natural scenes. While in Bergen, we took the funicular to the top of a hill overlooking the city and admired the midnight sun at the top of the mountain, still visible in the late evening. In the morning, we took a bus and eventually a ferryboat to other seacoast sights, and finally Stavanger. Both cities had centuries-old churches with remarkable painted pulpits from the Middle Ages and earlier. This was a delightful and transporting trip for us. We have a large collection of photos worth looking over on the Photography/Places We’ve Been part of the parkscrapbook.us website. (Norway gallery)

Wisconsin and California (for three weddings)

In June 2015 we took a trip to a state park in central Wisconsin, near Madison, for the wedding of Robert and Barbara’s son Ian to Layla Coleman. It was a delightful outdoor wedding with an outstanding reception and a dance band to wind up the day.

Later that same year, in October 2015, we flew to California’s bay area for the wedding of Robert’s oldest, Robin, to Evelyn Kroeker. We rented a B&B in Oakland (near where Mischa and Evan live in Berkely). Mischa treated Patty and me to a great tour of the Berkley area, including the beautiful botanical gardens. That evening, we rode into downtown San Franscico with Daniel and Jamie and kids to a reception hall for the big event. This was another exceptional celebration, with many family members and friends, a dazzling array of food and a fine live jazz band.

Three years later, in December of 2018, we returned to the Bay area for the wedding of Robert’s middle son, Mischa, to Evan Wilson. Patty and I stayed in a B&B in San Jose, about six blocks from Robin and Evelyn’s house. A festive dinner on the day before the wedding was held at a night club in downtown S.F., a terrific place called Drake’s—wonderful food and a good place to connect with others from Mischa and Evan’s family and friends. The next day, a Saturday, we all gathered with scores of friends and relatives for the outdoor ceremony, followed by dinner and dancing at the reception hall of a beautiful park with a lake near Mischa and Evan’s condo in Oakland.

Photos for these weddings by several people will be available for viewing on the Park Family website, within the photography section.

Visits to Canadian Cousins

Our Mother, Catherine Edith Lenard Park, had four siblings. She was the oldest of her generation. Here are their birth years: Catherine, 1911; Etheridge, 1912; Evelyn, 1916; Alice, 1917; Wesley, 1920. All of my Leonard cousins stayed in Canada, and we have visited with them occasionally over the years. Mother’s siblings’ offspring consist of three Leonards, four Hendersons, and five Cowans. Three of these Canadian cousins are no longer with us.

In 2004, Patty and I took a car trip through Ontario, where our family originated, to visit our Leonard relatives. We stopped by Doris Cowan’s place out in the country west of Toronto, and we were surprised by a full family reunion of the Cowan family, including Aunt Alice, who was quite elderly and memory-compromised, with all five of her children in attendance. It was the first time in twenty years that the siblings had all been together at the same time. Cousin Hector brought along his wife. All the other Cowans were unmarried. After a great meal and a few enjoyable hours of catching-up, Patty and I hit the road again and headed toward Ottawa, where three of the four Henderson cousins lived. For about three days, we stayed at a nice B&B in Ottawa near their homes, and enjoyed visiting with Mark (and his wife and daughters), and Alastaire and Hildegarde.

Judith, who died in 2025, was the only cousin I regularly corresponded with. She was a fine professional writer with a very quick, creative and eccentric mind, and it was always a joy to hear what she thought about various political and world-condition issues.

While in Ottawa, we were delighted to again see Aunt Evelyn and Uncle Eric, who were living in a care center in Ottawa. I was able to help out with a doctor’s visit for Evelyn by serving as the one with a car. Alastaire and Hildegarde went along to talk over things with their mom’s physician. We had a nice meal at the care center with everyone. Aunt Evelyn had always been the Leonard relative that reminded me the most of my mother. I was careful to remain in contact with her for thirty years via letters, including during her waning years, where her letters became more disjunct. She was a wonderful letter-writer, and always had insightful and interesting things to write about over the years. She stopped writing once her mind failed her during the two years she lived at their care center. Uncle Eric lived at the same care center, in a unit designed for a different level of care, but they were in daily contact with each other.

Two years later, in 2006, Robert, Barbara and I drove together to a special Leonard family reunion in Port Rowan, Ontario on Lake Ontario, where our now-widowed Uncle Wesley lived. We and several other Leonard family members were able to attend a private memorial service for Wesley’s wife Irene while we were there. A memorial marker for her was placed on the ground near the back door of their house, which is located a little way out of town from Port Rowan. Wesley and Irene’s son Craig was the family member who had traveled the furthest to attend. He lives in Japan where he works as an English/Japanese translator. Also in attendance for this occasion were several of the Cowan and Henderson cousins who we had seen two years earlier. Added to the list was Jay Henderson who made the trip from his home in Thunder Bay, Ontario, on Lake Superior (right near the eastern tip of Minnesota). We all had a wonderful meal at a popular restaurant by the harbor in Port Rowan. During our visit, Robert, Barbara, and I were able to help Craig do some sorting and hauling out of things from Wesley’s house that needed to be tossed.

The final day of the reunion was on Easter Sunday, where all the family members attended Uncle Wesley’s church. We witnessed a special dedication of a new four-foot-tall stained-glass window on a main stairway at church. It was contributed by Uncle Wesley in honor of Irene—a long-time, well-loved member of the church community. Wesley’s son Craig participated fully in the honorary ceremonies. The new window had already been installed and looked lovely with the sun pouring through it. A wonderful plaque dedicated to Irene was placed in front of the window.

Maritime Province Visits

In 1972, Betty divorced Murray and four years later married a colorful and brilliant bridge designer named Charlie. In later decades, I visited the Maritimes several times with my family, including visits to see Betty and Charlie in Fredericton, New Brunswick. They also generously invited us to stay at their cottage near Parrsboro, Nova Scotia. The cottage is built on a bluff overlooking the Bay of Fundy, where we could witness the highest tides in the world. Our extended family held a reunion in the summer of 1996 at Betty and Charlie's cottage. We also took side trips to Prince Edward Island, a beautiful province just offshore from New Brunswick, where the St. Lawrence River empties into the Atlantic. This is where the famous book Anne of Green Gables was set.

My wife Patty and I, our son Daniel, his wife Jamie, and their kids Malcolm and Sadie, all visited Betty at the cottage two more times as a family. Daughter Catherine and her sons (Isaac and Elias) also visited as Betty's guests during around 2012.

Charlie passed on in January 2012 from cancer, and Betty died in 2021 at age 89. Jennifer and Linda, and their husbands decided not to keep the cottage any longer. Neither family lived close enough to manage its maintenance. This lovely sea cottage was always a memorable place for us to stay. Many colorful photos and great memories remain.