We had sold the Farmhouse , Parkley Craigs with a distant entry date of mid November , but had cleared out by end Sept , distributing its contents to a variety of destinations, delivering the dogs and cats to their new homes and making our sad farewells to kids, family and friends. Off to the New World. A flight to Houston, a lovely funeral service for Jay, clearing with Jane and Martha his appartment and crucially being given by Jane and Martha Jay's 1999 Buick Le Sabre which has been an integral part of our lives and is still going ( not strong but going ) 10 years later . Thank you Janie and Martha. I've tended it as if it was a member of the family ! Some of things it has been through though would not have amused Jay. He would be pleased though that it has served us so well and given us so much pleasure.
From Houston we launched proper our USA adventure. Our destination was Aspen , but we wanted to visit on the way Betty in Asheville NC, Mary's nephew and niece Geoffrey and Laura who were at UPenn in Philadelphia, Duncan at Cornell , Ithaca, NY, Katy in Columbus OH and I think Mary's cousin Gail in Tulsa OK. Quite a demanding excursion for our newly acquired and precious Buick.
Meghan and Jane ( whose advice it was to go to Aspen in the first place ) had said ' If you're serious about getting jobs in Aspen you have to go to the Skico job fair at the end of October ' . We took this advice seriously and when in Philly seeing Geoffrey and Laura, we left the Buick at Philly airport and flew out to Aspen for the weekend. Seemed an extraordinarily extravagant thing to do at the time, but it had exciting and very rapid consequences. We hired a car, spent Fri night at the the Snowmass Inn, drove to Buttermilk the following morning for the job fair, were greeted in most welcoming fashion at the top of the steps on arrival by a lady who introduced herself as Head of Guest Services , Snowmass. Within minutes she announced that we were just the sort of couple she was looking for and hired us on the spot to start work a month later on Snowmass Mtn. Susan (Cross) was her name and she and her partner Mark have become good friends. She's since been promoted within the company to Mountain Manager , Buttermilk.
The breakfast next morning at Main Street Bakery I've already commented on. It was while reading that paper in whose pages we appeared, that we spotted an ad for a house in Meadow Ranch Snowmass. We phoned the number, agreed to meet the owner Akasha (who has also become a friend in the intervening years) 15 minutes later, and signed there and then a lease for a year at rent of $2,200 per month. Within 24 hours of arriving in Aspen we had jobs and furnished accommodation lined up. We had a happy airtrip back to Philly, continued our road trip with successful visits to Duncan , Katy, and Gail and subject only to a rather scary blow out in a back tire in the fast lane of I.70 close to Vail, arrived with Buick safely intact at Snowmass to start our jobs on Thanksgiving Day 2006.
 |
| Our hero Benjamin Franklin in museum in Philly |
 |
| This was taken right beside Main Street Bakery on that first morning we had in Aspen at the end of Oct 2006. |
Next installment - Some Financial Considerations: No Small Matter
No comments:
Post a Comment