Bob and Debbie Conroy - Enjoying the Journey Together!

An excerpt from the 2005 blog. The Polk County Health Department had contacted GuideOne for four volunteers to help with an expected planeload of refugees from New Orleans. The TV had been showing pictures of the set-up in the Varied Industry building on the fairgrounds. There was provision for 1,000 people, including a few acres of cots. Debbie and I arrived at the fairgrounds and checked in at the security area to get tagged. Then, we walked the few blocks to the Varied Industries building, the same building where I saw the President the day before the 2004 election. We noticed many campers and RV’s in the parking lots around the building. What an amazing response: so many resources were put together in just a few days. Then we started noticing dogs around many of the RVs. If there wasn’t a dog there was an empty kennel. As we went in the southeast entrance of the building it was clear what was going on- a dog show was in full swing. The sea of cots had been replaced with thousands o...

Here are some old blogs from the archives. A note that might help make more sense of these posts: The primary audience was my mother. She was living in Arizona and this was before she was on Facebook.  My sister Deb or Mom’s neighbors would print the posts for her to read.  Also, note that none of the links from the original posts are active.   April 2005 April 15. We had a great time in AZ. Merge and Pete have promised to visit Iowa this summer while Deb K. is still on the fence. Now what to do with the DVDs and CDs?? We visited the Biosphere 2 on this trip. It was interesting but I still am not sure why anyone built it! Debbie and I have rescheduled our New York City trip until June. Too much going on and too many people moving in May. We are waiting for Merge and Deb K to commit to a trip back to Des Moines in July and then we will schedule the rest of our vacation time. April 18. We watched Grease at the DM Civic Center. The “we” included Debbie and me along with Mikk...

Here are some old blogs from the archives. A note that might help make more sense of these posts: The primary audience was my mother. She was living in Arizona and this was before she was on Facebook.  My sister Deb or Mom’s neighbors would print the posts for her to read.  Also, note that none of the links from the original posts are active. January 2005 January 1. Another New Year's Eve at the Val-Air Ballroom and, as always, a lot of fun. The same group, the Conroys, the Mays, the Burdettes, and the Robinsons did our lemming-like return to the ballroom and shuffled on the dance floor after gorging on the great food catered by Christiani’s VIP Catering Service, LTD. The featured band was “Peter Noone and Herman’s Hermits”. He is the original “Herman”. Great show! We got autographs after the show and I recommended that he change the words from “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” to Mrs. Greenwood You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter”! There was kind of a hush all over the ro...