Dale Foland:  

2015 After attending Long Beach City College. I was drafted into the Army in 1969 and went to Basic and Advanced Infantry training at Fort Ord. Thirty guys out of two graduating class were sent to Fort Myers, just out side of Washington DC, for an opening in the Honor Guard and I was one of them. The rest were headed for Vietnam. I ended up at Fort Myer, Virginia, working in data processing for the rest of my tour. You have to admit life is interesting and full of strange twists and turns! I found that I enjoyed, photography, fly fishing, motorcycles, hunting, backpacking, windsurfing, along with snorkeling after leaving the Army. I met a girl named Cheryl in a Psychology class and fell in love. I managed to get a job at Security Pacific National Bank in 1972 and started a career in Information Technology. Cheryl and I got married, bought a house, and started a family. The elated feeling of watching my kids being born was pretty amazing. Then about 1989, we decided to leave California and move to Portland, Oregon, to get away from the smog and traffic. First Interstate Bank moved their Data Processing Center to Oregon in 1990 and it was a perfect match for us. I followed First Interstate Bank on to Phoenix, Arizona in 1995 before Wells Fargo Bank bought them out and I was laid off. Neither Cheryl or I had ever been to the Rocky Mountains, so the decision was to give Colorado an opportunity to amaze us and it has so far. A company by the name of NYCE had a position for me in Longmont, Colorado and we were on our way to the mountains. We had a house built at the base of the Rocky Mountains, in a small town. Six years later NYCE was bought out by another company and I was laid off with a six month severance package. Cheryl said, haven't you always wanted to go to New Zealand and so we spent a month traveling through New Zealand and Australia, after leaving NYCE and that was our first real taste of travel outside the U.S. The natural beauty of New Zealand was incredible and diving on the Great Barrier Reef was spectacular. Building a house was something I always wanted to do, so I partnered up with a friend and we built two houses a standard house and a log cabin. Then 2007 hit, the housing market died and retirement was sounding interesting. Having time to spend with my kids allowed me to get to know them as young adults and see them, not just as my kids, but as good friends. The timing was good because Jared and Jene', my younger son and daughter, hadn't started families yet. Being invited by my oldest son James to travel through Baja for a few weeks because he was interested in living there was great. That trip allowed the two of us to get to know each other better and also opened my eyes to living outside the U.S. Along our travels Cheryl and I have met a lot of wonderful and interesting people, they certainly have enriched our lives. I can only hope that we have done the same for them. We are still enjoying hiking the mountain trails and fishing the streams, not to mention capturing nature with a camera occasionally. Travel is always a hot topic in this family and our kids have traveled much more extensively out side the U.S. than we have so far. Seems that travel bug is contagious. If you were to ask me what my passion is I might say my family, fly fishing, trave...Expand for more