You know I found out about Elder Hostels while reading a Readers Digest. It took some checking to find out how to go to one. Now I know all I have to do is go to the Local Library, and they have one of their current cataloges on file. If you don't know about them, let me tell you!
Almost every college anywhere offers Elder Hostels. You just have to find one that is offering a subject you are interested in. Jay and I went to Utah for our first experience. We stayed at Dixie College and studied Ghost Towns of Southern Utah. We learned all about the Movies that were made in the area and heard stories about John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara and Susan Hayward when they were in St George, Utah making movies. We slept in the Dormatory and held some of the classes in the College itself. We had an old fashioned Dutch Oven Dinner in the Park and visited one of the Pioneer Grave Yards. We had some fabulous meals and great people to enjoy all the activities with. The price was right, and we could drive.
We met a women from Pennsylvania who had flown in. She had all her "stuff" in a duffle bag and had hiked down carrying it on her shoulder from the hilltop airport. She picked her Elder Hostels starting from the furtherest point from her home and then made her way back by attending different programs across the US until she returned home. She told us she rarely had to find a way from one appointment to the next. There always seemed to be someone who would offer her a ride. I'd say she was in her early 60's. Sure enough at the end of our classes, one of the gentlemen in the group was going to a college further East and would be happy to drop her off on his way to his next Hostel, which just happened to be for a band. Everyone would bring their own instrument, work with all the other Hostelers and for their finale they would put on a concert for the locals. He had gone to France and did a bicycle tour once. There doesn't seem to be an end of possiblities.
You rarely find someone like us just starting out. Most in the groups have done 20 or more. I believe Jay and I would have continued if his health had not failed so rapidly. We both enjoyed them. Always picking one that we could drive to. I think the most memorable one was in Trinidad Colorado. We went to learn about the Santa Fe Trail. The man who made the weeks
Class schedule was aging and they weren't sure just how much longer he would be able to do it.
I never saw it advertised after we went, so I guess he gave up. Our meals were prepared by the Marriott Hotel in town. What a feast that turned out to be. The housing was in the Dorms and the bathroom was on the second floor while we were on the first floor. Not all the helpful.
We learned how to make adobe bricks on this one. Not of great use, but darned interesting.
We went to Sadona, Arizona and studied the Hopi Indians and the forest and desert of the area.
We stayed in a Motel for this one and ate in a resturant. We went to Placerville, CA and leaned all about the Gold Rush. It was on this one we heard about a man who had been a very interest-
ing character back in those "good old days". His name was the same as one of the men Jay had served with on board the LSM330. I wrote to him after we had come home and asked if he knew this man. He wrote back and said yes, he was his Great Grand Father. He hadn't heard any of the stories and had no pictures of the old gentleman. I sent him the names and addresses of the people who had put on the seminar so he could get a copy of the information and a picture
for his records. We went to the State Fair Grounds and learned about the work being done there. They were extracting all the medical records they found for genealogy and had boxes of pictures they had gathered. Inviting anyone interested to go through and see if they could recognize any of them. Most had no identification. What a loss if they could not tell who all those gold rush people were.
We went to Kingman, Arizona and attended there. Geology, rock hounding, etc. We went to Oatman and saw the wild donkeys. When the miners died or gave up their prospecting, they just left their animals wander and they have multiplied and pretty well taken over that town.
We talked up Hosteling and a couple of the LSM 330 joined in and went to Europe to do things in England. Easy for them, they are retired Naval Officers and have travel availablity.
I think we made 7 before we had to quit. I would love to go again. You don't have to have a partner, if you don't mind paying for a single, or if you wouldn't mind sharing, you can take a chance of a partner. Either way, it is a fun way to learn, and see some of the country as well. Just about anything you would find of interest is offered somewhere. You can even go on a Safari if your brave and don't mind taking all the shots required.
Oh, you have to be a Senior Citizen to take advantage of this. Something for you younger folks to put on the back burner and try out when you are fortunate to become "empty nesters".
Oh, something else we learned in Trinidad, Colorado. What the "picket wire" really is. In so many of the Western Movies you hear them talk about the "picket wire". Cattle drives were either East or West of the "picket wire." We were taken to the river outside Trinidad and told the story about a group of French Soldiers who were killed by Indians as they camped by the River. There after it was named the "Pergitory River" and the Westerners couldn't pronounce the name like the French - thus it was known as the "picket wire". I thought it was some kind of a fence, but it was a river. So you can learn some pretty interesting things. And we did!
Written this 18th day of January 2010
by: Eileen Rosenberg
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