McCorry Summer Vacation

Brian McCorry's wife Besty wrote this letter about their trip this summer to Colorado. I hope you enjoy it and invite you to send letters and photos from your summer vacations to me at mullico@gmail.com for posting on the blog. Hope you're having a great summer! Robert Mullins

We had a great time in Colorado, a wonderful combination of relaxing, spending time with the grandchildren and their parents and exploring Colorado. I only hope David and Lisa are still in one piece after entertaining five extra people in their little home for a week.



Brian McCorry Family on Colorado vacation. (L-R) Daughter Lizzie; son Andrew (holding graddaughter Mia); daughter-in-law Lisa; son Matthew; son David (with grandson Michael Patrick in front); wife Betsy; and Brian.




The trip got off to an inauspicious start on the first day when we were hiking up a trail near David and Lisa’s house. I was feeling so good and remarking to myself what a difference since a year ago in Canada when my hemoglobin was so low unbeknownst to me and I couldn't do anything. So, when we had the option of continuing on or returning with Lisa, Brian and the babies, I opted to continue on with Andrew and Matthew, a dumb choice on my part. Two hours later when we finally returned to the top of the hill where we'd sent Lisa and everyone back, I told the boys to go ahead, I needed to rest but told them to wait for me at the bottom of the hill, about a half hour's walk. I sat down and quickly realized that all was not right as I almost fainted and felt like throwing up. So, I just sat, knew I shouldn't try to walk and hoped the boys would return. Finally two bikers came along, Larry and Steve, with whom I became quite friendly (that sounds strange) while sitting with them, sipping on their Gatorade and finally throwing up. They decided I better not try the hill and called the rescue people. Larry or Steve - never did figure out which was which - rode down to see if they could find the boys. Matthew was halfway up the hill. Good old Andrew had just gone on home. Larry or Steve congratulated Matthew on maintaining a place in our Will while Andrew gets written out. So, anyway, rescue arrived, diagnosed me with heat exhaustion and took me to the bottom of the hill where I was checked out and taken home. Lizzie arrived the next day and we all had dinner at the restaurant Lisa works on, a lovely outdoor patio setting right next to the famous Durango Steam Engine station. It pays to have a family member [who works there] along -- drinks were free! The food was excellent and the kids very well behaved thanks to the fact Michael could just run around the lawn when he got tired of sitting. It was a perfect summer meal out. Another day, we all drove through beautiful mountain roads and authentic little western towns to the town of Telluride, a charming, VERY affluent 1890-ish town. We rode the ski gondola to the top where I got to see one of the mountainsides David snowboards on - very impressive, just glad, I think, that I don't have any opportunity to watch him maneuver that steep mountainside in person. The views were incredible. David took us on one of his river rafting trips on Saturday. It was very peaceful and relaxing, and we got one brief taste of the rapids. And, it was fun to watch David in action steering the raft through the rocks. We drove up to the land David and Patrick bought about forty-five minutes from Durango. It is beautiful. It remains to be seen if their investment will pay off but it sure is a great place to go camping and picnicking in the meantime. The highlight of Matthew's trip undoubtedly came one night when he decided he'd go to the bathroom outside at about 3:00 a.m. (boys!). Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw a dog about ten feet away on the sidewalk and then quickly realized it was NO dog but a full grown bear! After staring at each other a few seconds he decided he better go inside where he tried to awaken Brian which took forever. They ended up trying to pursue it in the car but only got a brief glimpse of it. I wish he'd wakened me; I would have been up in a flash. There were a couple of days when David and Lisa both had to work. On our last day we decided to take the kids to a spot even David had never been but which is, according to the guidebook I was reading, one of the 161 (!!) most beautiful spots in Colorado. It was supposed to have beautiful fields of wildflowers. However, for reasons I won't go into, we took the wrong way and stopped six miles short of our destination. We went back a ways and ended up having a picnic at the spot where David and Lisa were married.
Of course no visit to Lisa's is complete without a lot of great food including her famous toasted ravioli. We enjoyed a couple barbecues with some of their friends. It's always good to put names with faces. It's definitely a very different lifestyle. David and Lisa hardly ever use the car. They walk and bike just about everywhere. Everyone is so laidback and extremely friendly. The architecture is so different, not so much in the downtown area where the buildings really don't look so different from turn of the century buildings in any Midwestern town but in the neighborhoods. Of course, we kept reminding ourselves that those charming little homes probably cost a half million dollars. David and Lisa are most anxious for Lizzie and me to carry through on our threats to report their house to one of those home makeover programs. We need to come up with a tear jerker element to their story though to get anyone interested. The fact that it has some electrical work that has obviously never seen a code inspector and a different molding around every window and door won't cut it. Even the bathroom that is also the hall to the master bedroom won't cut it. Mia and Michael are both adorable and as different as they come. Let's just say Michael is much like his father at the same age, cute as a button, full of personality and very strong-willed while Mia is about as sweet and mellow as they come. It was wonderful to have so much time with both! The trip was all very much worth it.

Betsy