Suson Climenson:  

Hi everyone! I just recently added myself to the John Burroughs High School Class of 1965 list because, even though I attended Hoover High School in Glendale (and originally listed myself on there), all of my friends from elementary school (Stevenson and Roosevelt) and junior high school (Luther Burbank), all went on to attend Burroughs and some to attend Burbank High School! Hoover was (and probably still is) a great high school, and I did make some really great friendships there, but I realised that the bulk of my old friends went on to attend Burroughs or Burbank High School. It might not surprise any of you that I've continued on with my art/design interests and added-in online marketing and website design. At present I've been doing website design and online marketing work for the last 14+ years and prior to that, traditional graphic design and advertising copy writing and art direction (for print, billboards, TV commercials, magazines, radio commercials, political campaigns and merchant promotions). Before I settled down with my husband, I lived in Hermosa Beach, Mendocino, Sebastopol, Santa Rosa, Guerneville and the North Shore of Oahu (at Tables Beach). After I married I moved away from the mild-climate North Bay up into the snowy, windy, chilly, have-to-stay-indoors-or-you'll-get-frostbite high Sierras for 21 L-O-N-G years. Eight years ago we finally left the snowy "American Alps" and came back down to the mild weather North Bay area. The area we lived in up in the Sierras was real Cowboy Country...beat your horse and your wife and kids, chew tobacco, spit allot, drink whiskey allot, scowl and swear allot and don't forget to kick the dog for good measure. We made friends...they even invited us to join their secret organization...The Grange (we respectfully declined) but is was a VERY interesting experience for both my husband and I and our kids who were growing up there. We had 7 horses, 7 dogs, 7 cats, tons of tropical fish, 2 birds and the area was loaded with coyotes, owls, mountain lions, whooping cranes, hawks, bald eagles, antelope, deer and bears. We used to joke and say we were living just like "Grizzly Adams". It was harsh, dangerous but exciting. We learned allot about survival, horses, lightning fires, getting firewood and more. It's been great to be able to once again take walks any day of the year. Rain...who cares! A little bit of fog, that's nothing! Compared to being snowed-in for weeks on end, losing electrical power and therefore your well water supply, taking 3+ hours to drive to work because of an avalanche blocking the pass and watching your horses shiver, this is heaven! So far I haven't been able to force myself to go back up there yet, even to go camping. Watching snow falling in movies, sends sharp chills up my spine...but maybe I will be able to stand it in 4 more years or so ;-) Right now I still think of this phrase "Snow Kills"...and it did, everyday. Right now my husband and I are enjoying the lifestyle here in the North Bay, hanging out in Tiburon and Sausalito and watching the sail boats come in, wandering around San Francisco and Golden Gate Park, discovering new gourmet restaurants up in wine country, and by car and ferry, camping up and down the northern coast and up into Alaska and Canada. Our favorite activity, besides gardening, camping, eating out, playing with our Boxer dog, "Gildie", being with our grown kids and grand kids and going to the movies every Friday night, is taking what we like to call "Adventure Road Trips". The "adventure" part comes in because we set a basic direction and the date when we need to head back to start work again, and then just "head out" basically "in THAT direction". We never know what we will find, who we will meet, what challenges we will face, etc. We take our computers with us, so if we are say "doing the Old South" we check the night before to find reviews on boutique hotels in the French Quarter or historic downtown Savannah and make our hotel reservations ahead of time. Favorite Places so far: * Lyon, Perrouges, Cremieux and St. Chef, France * Salsburg, Innsbruch and Vienna, Austria * The Black Forest in Germany * Bern, Luzanne (not Lucerne) and Saanen (sp?), Switzerland * West Kensington in London and Dartmouth, Torquay & Cockington in Devonshire (the Devon Moors are spooky!) * Ketchican, Alaska (do NOT go to Petersburg, AK!) * Along the Skeena River in B.C. (when it's raining there are literally hundreds of waterfalls coming down off the hillsides along the rushing river and be sure to say "hi" to the local star, a large photogenic, Mountain Marmot who's famous in those parts). * The Four Corners region of the Southwest, especially the Jacarilla Apache Reservation, Mesa Verde and the Navajo Monument Valley *The French Quarter, Garden District, Plantation Row, Jean Lafitte Swamp and New Iberville in Louisiana (but be sure to watch out for the Cajun drivers...we were rear-ended twice in 30 minutes in Cajun country!) * Charleston, South Carolina (gorgeous...totally intact and very large historic district!) * Savannah, Georgia (be sure to go to "The Lady & Sons" plantation style restaurant on Sunday!) * Williamsburg, Virginia * Knoxville, Chattanooga and Gatlinburg, Tennessee and The Great Smoky Mountains * Natchez, Mississippi (you can actually buy an antebellum mansion there for around $400K!) Be sure to eat at the River Keeper's Restaurant down near the Mississippi paddle wheeler casino and take breakfast at "Biscuits & Blues". * Northern Alabama (looks like Sonoma County!) * Roswell, New Mexico (the street lamps are alien heads!) and Santa Fe and Los Cruces. * The North Shore of Oahu and the BIG Island * Bryce Canyon and Zion in Utah (Salt Lake City is somewhat weird...we high-tailed it out of there in a hurry!) * The "Thunder Mountain Monument" in Emli, NV and Angel Lake in Nevada (Thunder Mountain is a large outsider art construction built by a man who dubbed himself, "Chief Rolling Thunder", that is something to see...you can't miss it from the highway) Next on our list is the North East and Eastern Canada. I was born in Lancaster, PA and my husband's Dad was also Pennsylvania Dutch and born in Delano, PA, so we'd like to...Expand for more