Throwback Thursday and Annie's Excellent Roman Adventure

Hard to believe, but by blog time tomorrow, our Precious and her Precious (camera lens) will be touching down in Rome. 

Yup, Annie's off today on an evening flight to Amsterdam and then on to the Eternal City. Italy will be the vacation part of her adventure, and then she'll move on to Germany for work. 

She's traveling with another couple, and they've planned a full itinerary, including a visit to the Vatican and some time in the square on Sunday in hopes for a blessing from Pope Francis----yet to be determined by the Pope's schedule. 

The photo above was taken at Samuels Store in July, 2003, the morning she took off on her first world adventure to New Zealand for six months on a college exchange through Boise State.  We all had breakfast, then Annie and I drove to the airport.

I cried all the way home, thinking about how long she'd be gone.  Turns out I lasted four months, then went to New Zealand myself to spend almost two weeks with Annie touring the North Island. 

In her time left, Annie spent three weeks traveling the South Isle.  She also enjoyed a Viggo Mortensen sighting on the red carpet in Wellington when "The Return of the King" from Lord of the Rings premiered.

Viggo blew her a kiss that day. 

I don't expect Pope Francis to blow Annie a kiss, but I'm sure his blessing will mean a lot to her and thousands of other pilgrims.  

Funny the two superstars have their Sandpoint connections with Viggo owning land around here and one of the Pope's books, written by a Sandpoint High grad.

Anyway, Annie's covered some miles since that photo above, and we sure have enjoyed living vicariously through her adventures.  So, the next few days should be fun. 

This, I believe, throws us back about 23 years when I escaped town for a few days from an ongoing squabble with my school principal (let's just say he never read the high school paper until mid-January and then got mad at me and my staff cartoonists) by taking a weekend trip to Palm Springs.

My longtime friend Mow aka Jean met me at the airport and hosted me at their home where family was visting, including the adorable little lady above.

She's grown up now but Mow hasn't aged a bit since the days we met at Camp Neewahlu on Lake Coeur d'Alene in 1965 where she served as camp water safety instructor and I washed dishes.

We've enjoyed a wonderful friendship ever since, and she'll be coming to Sandpoint in the couple of weeks.  

I can't talk about Annie without digging through the archives in Willie's behalf.  Usually it's the Irish family members doing the clown act, but little Rusty (son of Cliff, the wild Irishman) met his match when he and Willie first became acquainted at Patti's Daycare.

The years have passed since the days of Riley Creek Lumber Co. sponsoring a local team.  Nowadays, it's Idaho Forest Group.  Rusty followed his dad's footsteps driving a logging truck, and Willie followed his mom's footsteps as a journalist.

They're both still great friends, as I am with his dad Cliff.

Pretty cool.    

Best School Spirit, Sandpoint High Class of 1965 aka the biggest mouths in the school.

Now, I didn't cheer quite as loud as Jim Holt, but I do remember a lot of raw throats after weekend sporting events where I did try to yell at the top of my lungs.

Nobody could come close to Jim's cheering abilities.  Now, he's cheering on the troops running the family pumpkin patch at Hickey Farms. 

I found this photo to post on our Sandpoint High Class of 1965 Facebook page.

I was amazed at how many members of our second-grade class have passed on, and I was really glad to stand in the second row for this photo so that my big feet in those ugly oxfords we wore to school in those days didn't show up.

Our teacher, Mrs. Hazel Lunn, had us running scared most of the time, but I have her to thank for never ever again writing my "5's" or my "S's" with a substandard loop.

She told me that's why I received a "U" in penmanship.

Ah, the good ol' days.

Happy Thursday.