1960 – 1970

Salt Lake City, Utah - 1961

We didn’t do much travel in the 1960 decade. However, Mom and Aunt Beth took us on a momentous road trip to Salt Lake City, Utah to visit their Aunt Ruth Clawson. We stayed at their home in the Avenues and attended their church’s production of the Day’s of ’47. Ruth, Uncle Al and their daughter, Sue were members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Upon our return home, Mary and I took the missionary lessons and joined the LDS Church on October 7, 1961.

Europe - 1969/1970

At the end of the Spring 1969 term at Cal Poly I got accepted to study at the California State College International Program in Florence, Italy for the for my fifth year of Architecture school. Nothing has changed my life more significantly than the year of study abroad with 85 other students from all the various Cal State University campuses. We had our orientation at San Francisco State University and then flew from SFO to Paris on August 1969. We traveled with the students who were going to the program at Aix-en-Provence program as well.

After taking an overnight train to Florence, Italy from Paris we lived in the Badia Fiesolana in San Domenico up the hill from Florence towards Fiesole. We attended intensive Italian language classes in the morning and explored the city in the afternoons. After this first session we had a 10 day break where I hitched hiked with Nora Contini and Rhona Shulman to Paris. Then I went on my own to London to meet my penpal, Allison for the first time.

Returning to Florence we began our regular school semester taking Italian, Architectural Design, Art History and European History. Many of us would take weekend trips to various Italian towns typically by hitch hiking. Our Art History professor would also arrange bus trips to towns such as Pisa and Sienna. We stayed in town for Thanksgiving with a big dinner and play put on by the Badia students. The semester ended in time to take our Christmas vacation. A group of us rented two minivans and we took off for Spain via southern France and Monaco.

Returning to Florence a week late, we resumed our studies. Welcoming the warmer Spring weather after a cold rainy winter. for Spring break I went to Naples with Cerie Elkind and Diane Anderson. We visited Pompeii and Capri. However, it was raining so hard in Capri that we spent the entire day in our hotel room.

Returning back to Florence we continued our semester and before you knew it, it was time for our Spring Break vacation. I went with a group of friends to Istanbul with a flight from Rome on Turkish airlines. After purchasing a leather coat my friend Arthur Robbins and I flew on El Al airlines to Tel Aviv. After an amazing visit in Israel we then flew to Athens for a brief stay on the magical island of Hydra before returning to school – again a week late!

The school year ended and all the students spreading throughout Europe for our summer adventures. Dirk Smolak and I joined Jerry Minta and Jim Suerken in thier Ford van they purchased in Germany on our camping trip throughout Europe. From Florence we went to Venice, then to Vienna, Prague, East and West Germany up to Danmark. Then we went over to Sweden ending in a camp ground in Oslo, Norway.

In Oslo, I left the gang to make my way to Kragero to find my Running relatives. Mom and dad pieced together the information of what I needed to do to get to Kragero. You take a big train and transfer to a smaller train, finally transferring to a single car train to Kragero. Mom had written in advance to Jakob Halvorson, Kragero Norway announcing that her son was studying in Italy and would be traveling in Europe during the summer with the intent to looking up any relatives still living in Kragero. The plan worked! The Jakob Halvorson family were waiting for my arrival and convinced me to spend the good part of three weeks with them. My cousin, Bjorn got me a construction job with him at the local shipyard. And then after two weeks we took the family car and drove to western Norway for a trip, ending up in Gjorvik, Norway to stay with the Harold Halvorson family – dad’s cousin.

My amazing year abroad ended at the end of August making my way back to Geneva, Switzerland with a brief stop in England to visit Allison and her parents. The year had been so life changing but the down side was that it made me dissatisfied with regular life. But I needed to get back to finish up my senior project, graduate from school, and face the military draft!