Dottie Snyder Engle
301-371-5170
dengle3699@aol.com

What good news, mostly connected to me, Dottie Snyder Engle and my travels. In June, Robin and I went to Paris and while there visited Nancy “Zabbie “Huff Quinn. Zabbie met us and bought us dinner.  Zabbie worked in an art museum in NYC and decided she needed more French and felt the only way she would learn it was to be immersed, so went to Paris. While becoming proficient, she met an Englishman. They got married, had two daughters who grew up and went to French schools. The Quinns thought their girls should be better English speakers, so they were sent off to England. One met and married an Englishman, the other an Aussie. Both are living in London where the Quinns keep an apartment so they can visit (and cuddle the grand kids) whenever they want. I thought it would be a great birthday treat for Robin and a once in a life time experience to eat at the Jules Verne Restaurant at the top of the Eiffel Tower. I got a reservation, instructions in French and a sample menu with the main menu offering veal. I thought I had paid 380 euros for dinner, but that was to hold the reservation. The main course turned out to be pigeon and after seeing all those on statues, Robin said, “No way.” It ended up that we got two small bottles of lemonade, a few small cheese biscuits, asked for the bill for two dinners and to be shown the way to the stairs. That was 480 euros!  Robin was happy to be able to take lots of photos from the top to level one.  Did I mention my hip was killing me since I had fallen and was hospitalized 4 days before the trip due to low sodium? Then it was on to Copenhagen to visit our Danish family for six days at a more leisurely pace.  On the last day, we walked to the nearby amusement park where they have the only wooden roller coaster in the world, then through the Kings’ Forest (8k).  In September, we went to Pittsburgh by way of Falling Water, the Frank Lloyd Wright house built for a wealthy family in Pittsburgh.  After touring the city and visiting a minute clinic for my infected thumb, we stopped to visit Karen Beck Gould who was Zabbie’s roommate and a co-chair with Brenda Eklund Pearson, my roommate, for matching us with little sisters. Karen sang at our wedding, though she doesn’t remember it, and I can’t remember what songs she sang. William Sprigg, who taught music at Hood, was the organist. Karen has a daughter who lives nearby, a daughter who is an LPN in New Jersey and a son in NYC.  Karen is living in assisted living and is trying to improve her walking so she can go to the Pirates games with less assistance. Bobby Campbell Rickman and I were supposed to go visit Jo Ann Twilley Plichta in West Chester, Pennsylvania, but Bobby was sick and we postponed.  Mary Ann Holloway Ford and Gail Kloeblen Spertzel were able to visit Jo who is happy in her mobile home near her son’s family but missing her friends. Speaking of Gail, last fall she traveled through Russia and Siberia on the Trans-Siberian Express to Lake Baikal then boarded the Trans-Mongolian Express.  She hired a driver and guide who took her around the Gobi Desert, staying in yurts for four nights.  She and a friend took a trip to France, staying in Paris a few days, and boarding a river boat on the Rhine in Lyon. This past February, she took a tour of Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. Gail says Hanoi is just like Bangkok was when she lived there in the 60’s.  Bangkok has changed a lot in the last 50 years.  She bought lots of gems to use in her jewelry making classes in Frederick. In June, Gail took her daughter Jody’s family to Peru for two weeks. Then she had to take the other to Bergen, Norway, sailing back to Montreal on the Viking SKY via Iceland, Greenland, ending in Montreal.  This daughter is now in Kuwait working for four months before retiring. Gail’s latest trip is a 114 day Grand World Cruise cruising out of Fort Lauderdale.  She had to make many adjustments like having someone drive her Prius to keep the battery charged, get a tax extension, get four months of meds from Medicare, banking matters-and she is traveling solo! She is coming to the reunion!  Bobby was horrified at the letter you received from us about the next reunion. See you at my house on June 8, 2018.