What do you say about "wonderful" people? How much fun we had? How much love was shared, as well as food, playing cards, swapping tall tales and of course…. nothing better than a Polish Joke ;) Telling tall tales about Morel Mushrooms? Oh YES, we ate tons and tons because we were up early and out to all the favorite haunts to "find" them.

I am Honey Bear [Barbara] and Bear One [Paul] and even in the late 1980's and well into the 1990's ther were no phones. . . . but the we lived at 10,000' on the Alpine Plateau on the Western Slope of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. It was 7 miles down to the Hwy 50 and 33 miles to either Gunnison to the West or Montrose to the East. Mostly this meant that you learned to make your own ice cream!

Joanne and Dick Tabin were fun and funny, they were "Bar-X" and "Candy-Bar", since talking on the CB was the only communication, we called each other by those names. Next it the glue for this fun set…. Walter and Geneivieve Golec, better known as the Wizzard and the Witch! In the summer it is high enough to be in Heaven, deer, elk, BEARS. . . porcupines…. many-many wild animals. . . .the weasel/MINX….. oh and the always amazing and entertaining Marmot.

In the winter, it was as close to SNOW Heaven as it gets, 32 feet of it, about 8 months of the year. Dick and Joanne and Paul and Barbara lived there all year long, I believe we saw each other nearly every day of the 5 years that we lived there. The Tabins however, lived there long before us and still lived there this year when they both passed about a month apart. We snowmobiled up to over 13,000'. . . . I do not believe there was a machine that Dick could not fix…. they were the glue that held the community together, need a cup of sugar?

More to come, Barbara Ennis Connolly PRINCESSBARBIB25@msn.com_

Joanne V Tabin