After 3500 miles and 23 days, Jack and I returned home. I was only there about 30 hours when I boarded a plane for New York (from where I am writing tonight). Our week in Aspen/Snowmass/Basalt ("the Roaring Fork Valley") was full of intense experiences with partners and clients. the Aspen Family Business Gathering-our 18th-is a wonderful opportunity for families to come together with other families and learn from each other as well as from us, the faculty. With 45 attendees (21 of whom were my clients), it was a lot of intense dialogue as well as training and coordinating.
Before the work started, Jack and I had a couple of days enjoying David Bork's house which sits on a mountain facing 12,000 feet peaks and sits atop 35 acres on another mountain. It was nice to be in home after 2 weeks in hotels and we cooked for David and our partners before the meeting started. We also visited some board colleagues from Scottsdale and Dinner with our friends Marjorie and Paul.
On the way home (800 miles in 1.5 days) we stopped in Moab and visited one of my favorite places on earth: Arches National Park. For those who have followed our travels before, you know that it is like entering a land full of beautiful red stone sculptures in every direction: Sedona on steroids! We drove around just before sunset and enjoyed many places quietly (there were others where tourists were still all over some of the rocks). As we entered the park, there were clouds hovering and the light wasn't great. On our way out, the sun came through and it was beautiful. In fact, we saw the most beautiful double rainbow over the rocks. I amazingly caught some shots on the camera and hopefully can upload them here.
It was a wonderful few hours of enjoying the rocks in our convertible and walking around a bit.
We had dinner at a local western restaurant late (for us) around 8PM and noticed that many of the people there were European-mostly Italian-some French and others Dutch or German. Probably the Americans had an earlier dinner and the Europeans were having dinner on their usual later schedule. I guess the "weak" US dollar makes it more appealing to travel to the U.S.
the next morning we headed south and west with home in mind. We stopped in Bluff Utah which is a tiny town where we have made some friends at two trading posts: Cow COunty Trading post and Twin Rocks Trading Post. At the first, we found that the woman who owns the gallery (and has a son with CP, I believe) lost her husband 2 years ago and is managing the restaurant, gallery and trading post on her own: what a load. Twin Rocks is owned by an attorney and his family with whom I have collaborated on a family business case. We enjoyed catching up with him and hoping that he will join us in Aspen next year.
We drove through monument valley, Navajo territory and Hopiland on this last leg of our journey, enjoying the beautiful desert and mountains of our home state, Arizona.
Home looked good: our desert birds of paradise had about doubled in size with the rain that happened during our absence. A major limb came off a tree in a storm and ironically a piece of artwork that I bought at Cow County Trading Post some 6 or 7 years ago fell off the wall over the fire place and broke in many pieces....oh dear.....
It still felt good to be in our own home, own bed and looking at our beautiful environment.
And so concludes the 2007 edition of travels through the Southwest with Leslie and Jack....the next trips (to Memphis for my friend, Lisa Malone's wedding to Elliott; sailing with my dad; and to Oregon for the wedding of the son of my partner Joe Paul) will all be short ventures.....
Take care and stay tuned!
Before the work started, Jack and I had a couple of days enjoying David Bork's house which sits on a mountain facing 12,000 feet peaks and sits atop 35 acres on another mountain. It was nice to be in home after 2 weeks in hotels and we cooked for David and our partners before the meeting started. We also visited some board colleagues from Scottsdale and Dinner with our friends Marjorie and Paul.
On the way home (800 miles in 1.5 days) we stopped in Moab and visited one of my favorite places on earth: Arches National Park. For those who have followed our travels before, you know that it is like entering a land full of beautiful red stone sculptures in every direction: Sedona on steroids! We drove around just before sunset and enjoyed many places quietly (there were others where tourists were still all over some of the rocks). As we entered the park, there were clouds hovering and the light wasn't great. On our way out, the sun came through and it was beautiful. In fact, we saw the most beautiful double rainbow over the rocks. I amazingly caught some shots on the camera and hopefully can upload them here.
It was a wonderful few hours of enjoying the rocks in our convertible and walking around a bit.
We had dinner at a local western restaurant late (for us) around 8PM and noticed that many of the people there were European-mostly Italian-some French and others Dutch or German. Probably the Americans had an earlier dinner and the Europeans were having dinner on their usual later schedule. I guess the "weak" US dollar makes it more appealing to travel to the U.S.
the next morning we headed south and west with home in mind. We stopped in Bluff Utah which is a tiny town where we have made some friends at two trading posts: Cow COunty Trading post and Twin Rocks Trading Post. At the first, we found that the woman who owns the gallery (and has a son with CP, I believe) lost her husband 2 years ago and is managing the restaurant, gallery and trading post on her own: what a load. Twin Rocks is owned by an attorney and his family with whom I have collaborated on a family business case. We enjoyed catching up with him and hoping that he will join us in Aspen next year.
We drove through monument valley, Navajo territory and Hopiland on this last leg of our journey, enjoying the beautiful desert and mountains of our home state, Arizona.
Home looked good: our desert birds of paradise had about doubled in size with the rain that happened during our absence. A major limb came off a tree in a storm and ironically a piece of artwork that I bought at Cow County Trading Post some 6 or 7 years ago fell off the wall over the fire place and broke in many pieces....oh dear.....
It still felt good to be in our own home, own bed and looking at our beautiful environment.
And so concludes the 2007 edition of travels through the Southwest with Leslie and Jack....the next trips (to Memphis for my friend, Lisa Malone's wedding to Elliott; sailing with my dad; and to Oregon for the wedding of the son of my partner Joe Paul) will all be short ventures.....
Take care and stay tuned!
No comments:
Post a Comment