The flight to Denver was bumpy, the landing, rough, and Carol (Stenger) and Guy’s flight was late, but after picking up the rental car we finally made it to the YMCA Camp in Estes Park a little after dark.  It was great to see everyone again; besides Carol and Guy who arrived with me, Marilyn and Rich, Jim, Linda and Dave Yoder, Martha, Dave Nykerk and Mary, Gary, and Nancy, my reunion roommate, had arrived.  We got reacquainted for about an hour before moving upstairs to bed. 

Sunday morning Jan Chell and Jan Wybourne arrived and Christian – the star of this reunion – got there in the evening.  We had expected Christian earlier to help prepare our Indian dinner, but we ‘managed’ without him.  Marilyn, Rich, Jim and Gary decided on an early hike. That dismayed me when I found out since I would have gone with them had I known.  Linda, Martha and I went shopping to complete the ingredients for our meal and gathered at the campfire site.  Several of us started chopping veggies for the curry but after I cut my thumb I decided I should contribute in another way so I became the ‘stirrer-in-chief’ constantly alternating between pots of onions, chicken and potatoes so they wouldn’t stick from close contact with the coals.  It was a wonderful, smoothly functioning joint effort and after about an hour we sat down to chicken curry, basmati rice, tomato chutney, raita, popadums, and rekindled fellowship.  I had thought we had way too much food, but we all ate so much there was only a little left over and Dave and Mary took that.  In the afternoon we drove to Dave and Mary’s borrowed vacation home to visit and look at Martha’s DVDs of Kodai.  Her new MacBook Pro worked like a dream.  We heard Christian would arrive at the Stanley Hotel after dinner and planned to surprise him when he got there, but he beat us to it and called while we were eating to say he was there.  We gave him a little time to get settled then drove over to welcome him.  We were all so excited to see him again after so long and it was wonderful to sit on the terrace and catch up.  He told us about the adventures he had since 1961.  He is quite the entrepreneur having had success in every business effort he has undertaken: as the Caterpillar rep in Angola, as well as taking over the running of diamond mining in the 80s.  When the political situation made that endeavor too dangerous he bought an island resort off the coast of West Africa and a wine farm in South Africa.  Those are his business interests now.  Before the evening ended he invited us all to be his guests at the hotel for dinner Monday evening.

Tuesday morning I got to go on the hike I was anticipating.  Jim, Marilyn and Rich, Guy and I went into Rocky Mountain Park to hike a trail to Loch Vales.  We started at an elevation of 9500’ and think we climbed about 1000’ to our goal.  It was wonderful weather going up but at that elevation it was much cooler and breezy – I was glad I had my windbreaker!  I had wondered if I would be tired and if my knee would bother me, but neither was an issue.  I took a bunch of pictures – including a chipmunk posing on top of a big rock – of the beautiful scenery.  We covered 7 miles according to my pedometer.  We made it back in time for lunch with the non-hikers (another group went out on a less rigorous hike and had a picnic) and enjoyed a stimulating conversations about world issues after lunch.  It was interesting to have Christian’s perspective from outside the US.  When the cafeteria closed we adjourned to the Missouri hut that Martha had arranged for our group and spent several more hours talking about our recollections.  Christian wanted to call Diane, his high school girlfriend, and Martha worked her computer magic and found the right number.  How excited they were to re-connect!  He extracted a promise from her to attend our 50th reunion and we will make reservations as soon as the Y will permit.  We ‘reunioneers’ will contact ‘missing’ or ‘fallen away’ classmates to urge them to come in 2011.  After Christian left to take care of some business matters, we decided to rest before dinner.  At 7 we gathered at the Stanley Hotel and took care of group photographs before dinner.  Christian’s hospitality was amazing!  Our dinner began with Dom Perignon and a choice of wines (chardonnay or troika, made from three reds) from Chamonix, his wine estate.  They were delicious!  Our first course was seared Ahi and a lamb chop, next a Caesar salad, then an astonishing choice of entrees (printed on a personalized “Welcome Kodai Class of 1961” menu!) followed by dessert and Schnapps from Chamonix.  After we drank up all the wine he had brought, he ordered some more wine from the hotel stock so after a while we probably had 75 to 100 glasses on the table!  I stopped at three glasses.  Linda and I probably had the least; everyone else was having a REALLY good time.  Martha tried to conduct some class ‘busniess’ – Tuesday’s reunion agenda and what – if any – Kodai project we might want to support.  Christian began by promising to fund a new projections system since he had been the projectionist when we were in high school  We couldn’t decide on anything else specific since we didn’t have cost estimates, although Christian made a significant general commitment to which the rest of us will add.  Martha promised to ask for more information from Kodai and we will decide later by email.  We finally began to leave around 11.  It was so hard to me to say good-bye since I knew they would have another day together. I had to leave early in the morning to get back to Cody, Yellowstone and work on Wednesday.  It was the most memorable reunion ever;  I can’t wait for 50!

Martha’s footnote:  On Tuesday we talked more about the class gift and that’s when we came up with the idea of supporting the Archival project.  It had been featured on one of the DVDs we watched.