First Grade Friends ~One friend can change your whole life!

 Michael and I go way, way back to 1960 in Painesville, Ohio where we both attended Melridge Elementary School in the first grade. As things often happen, we lost track of each other along the way when his heart illness complicated his life, a new school was built close to his house and just the usual differences kids often have. We knew all the same people and we think now we must have even been many places at the same time. Then after graduation Michael left Ohio and made his home in Colorado. It wasn't until our "older age" that we found each other again on Facebook, chatted online for a few years and then I came out to Colorado for a visit in 2014.  The old cliché of "the rest is history"  is pretty accurate! He was on disability with those heart challenges and a well recognized photographer. I was a donkey farmer in Ohio with a love of photography. With photography and the love of the West in common, we've since been on many adventures! I'm still a donkey farmer in Ohio but every three months or so I climb on a plane or drive to Colorado and we go on the road taking in the beauty of the west through our lenses.

     In 2019 I bought a house here on the western slope overlooking Rifle Gap Reservoir, and after twenty-some years living in very small apartment, Michael moved into Morningvue as chief cook and bottle-washer, maintenance man, friend, in-residence artist, caretaker and cat daddy for a new rescued cat named Chenlee !