Sea Level to I 2,000 feet, hurricane, snowstorm, heat wave - all in 2 weeks.
Our last meeting was divided between September 1999: New York, Colorado, Wyoming…and July 2000: Colorado.

NEW YORK
Austrian Cornelia König, Ginger Ferrell, now from London, Waltraud Hackenberg and Helga Reay-Young from Germany, Holly Sanford, now from New Zealand and Irish Mary Mackey arrived in New York at exactly the same time as hurricane Floyd. Linda Lichtman, my co-organiser from Cambridge, Massachusetts, joined us for the first day in the Big Apple. It was incredibly wet, windy, scary. Our visit to the Metropolitan Museum was pretty amusing. Thanks to the hurricane, we visited bucket-strewn galleries in a peaceful atmosphere. But at any time evacuation was possible. Walking back to our west side YMCA haven through Central Park, some of- us miraculously escaped being crushed by huge falling branches from an old tree. Drenched like wet cats, we looked at the news as we changed our clothes. "Flooding all over New York, stay home, HIDE." Hide? That was not for us.we didn't come from all over the word to hide. For the next three days Linda and I took our friends in every possible direction to discover what we know is the best of New York City: art museums, art galleries, glass galleries, of course, art supply stores, typical architectural buildings old and new and all the ethnic food restaurants which make the joys of travelling even more enjoyable. Every day was a different palatable country: Japanese, Indian, Chinese, Jewish-American……We even had time to step out of Manhattan and go to Ellen Mandelbaum's studio in Brooklyn to admire the now painfully familiar skyline of a 'city that never sleeps'. Several local artists were invited, and we held a slide show to see who was doing what. Time went fast, our stay was breathtaking, exhausting, full and wonderful. We rested on our respective planes to Denver in the Rocky Mountains.

DENVER
The Quarter Circle Bell Ranch where my husband Lawrence and I are living was "the girl gang's" general headquarters. One hour southeast of Denver, lost in the grazing plains of Colorado, the 3000 acre ranch was a kind of paradise after tumultuous New York. Two hundred and fifty cows to visit once in a while was a real novelty for the city dwellers. The weather was at its best, even a little hot. I had to lend shorts.