It was mostly Chuck's idea to buy a house in Pahrump, Nevada. He said we should have some hard assets for the coming inflation. We looked off and on for about 3 years. Starting in January 2012, we got serious. Chuck looked at houses pretty much full time for 6-7 weeks and we made 5 offers. After we got my "dream house," April 1, 2012, Chuck became obsessed with modifying it way beyond what anyone else would ever dream of doing. Today, I look around my comfortable house and realize that I'm surrounded by his love. After he's made this house so special, I could never move.

Chuck loved Pahrump. I had never thought I would hear him say that, but he had been saying it a lot. He loved the way the surrounding mountains turn purple in the evenings. He remarked almost every day, "What a gorgeous day! Isn't this just gorgeous?"  He actually admitted to loving the desert while wondering what a "mountain boy" like him was doing in the desert. He loved the freedoms in Nevada (not enough to completely suit him, but way more than California.) He had developed a certain frugality so he loved the cheap living in Pahrump. It was even starting to look like almost everyone we knew was moving to Pahrump. And Chuck loved being surrounded by his friends most of all. So yes, we missed our travels, but we were staying busy with our house, our friends, our business, and our fun times.

His latest passion was solar electricity for the house. He was planning on putting 9,000 watts of grid tied solar panels in the back yard. He had even gotten to the point of seriously considering starting a solar business, because as always seemed to happen, by the time we had educated ourselves enough to buy, he knew more about the topic than anyone else we'd met. 

After Chuck's death, a friend told me, "Make up a honey-do list and I'll come visit and do the list." And I said quite truthfully, "Listen, my Honey did more than a thousand husbands would have done in the past 18 months. It's going to be a long time before this house falls to rack and ruin." Now, it almost feels like he had a premonition and wanted it all to be perfect for me...

So here I am. My door is always open to our friends. Chuck taught me the value of friendship and expanded my list of friends exponentially. So come for a visit and we'll reminisce...

In 2004, we sold the Trinity County house and purchased a semi-custom motorhome. Chuck was 70 years old. We hit the road for full time RVing with just the motorhome, a small motorcycle, and an enclosed trailer for the bike. We bought a bigger motorcycle in 2007, but we had no car until June 2010. We left with just a couple of our businesses that we could work by Internet and telephone, and Chuck's social security for support. Chuck said not to worry, we would see opportunity as opportunity is everywhere. There is no one in this world who ever saw more opportunity than Chuck. Chuck always said you could drop him naked on any street corner anywhere in the world, and within a week he would be okay...clothed, fed, housed, and managing a business.

In 2006, we took the motorhome to Portland, Oregon and lived in the parking lot of the Beaverton Elks Lodge for about 3 weeks to become licensed life insurance agents so that we could sell our "safe money" financial products. When we took the exam, Chuck and I both passed with high scores. At 72, he was probably the oldest person to ever pass the exam on the first try, much less with a top score. We went to conferences, trainings, and client appointments on our motorcycle, always together, while those other "young-uns" showed up in suits and ties, driving Mercedes cars and trying to look like whatever concept of a "successful financial advisor" they believed would work.

Oh... the places we've been and the sights we've seen, the adventures we've been on, the amazing people we've met--so many who have become life long friends, and the FUN we've had! What an incredible life! If I die tomorrow, I can easily say I have done more living in the past 28 years than most people even dream of.

Chuck was the one behind our travelogue. He contributed 98% of the narrative and I did the pictures. It was his goal to entertain and educate and keep in touch with our friends and family near and far. Another reason he loved the travel was that he hated it when his friends "died without notice" and didn't give him a chance to say goodbye. Our travelogue was another way to keep that connection with the people he cared about. He did get to see many friends again he might not otherwise have seen. All of those travelogues are indexed on a website at http://site.travelswithcoleandcole.com/  

Chuck moved to Trinity County, California from the Mountain View-Santa Clara, California area in February 1979. He found a little house on a hill he wanted. It wasn't for sale, but by the time the great negotiator was finished talking to the owner, the house was for sale after all. He brought his dirt motorcycles, his Burmese cat Cynthia, his girlfriend Julie, and began a brand new, very different life. When Chuck proposed to Donna, he told her he loved her and wanted to marry her, but she would have to quit her job at the IRS and move to Trinity County. "Living anywhere else is not negotiable."

At any given time, Chuck's beloved pets included goats, dogs, cats, chickens, rabbits, pigeons, and a potbellied pig. Okay, maybe he didn't actually claim Joe-Pig as his, but rather Donna's. He raised some livestock too, sheep, turkeys, pigs, and a steer. Donna plans to retire on the income to be generated from her "animal memoirs" from those special days.

Chuck's hobbies and activities at this time included cross country skiing, hiking, driving or riding through the woods on the logging roads, travel, and scuba diving. Together we scuba dived in Kauai, the Big Island, Maui, Cancun, Cozumel, Aruba, Bonaire, Grand Cayman, Little Cayman, the Mendocino Headlands, the Channel Islands, Lake Tahoe, Trinity Lake, and Whiskeytown Lake. We were trained in Advanced Scuba and even as Rescue Divers.

Chuck was a bit of a doomsday prepper... before hardly anyone else was, naturally. So, this 5 acre property with gravity fed spring water on a year round creek and millions of acres of wilderness abutting it was part of that. He even had a year's worth of dehydrated food in the attic.

Chuck loved Trinity County, the friends he made there, the little house on the hill, and the beauty and serenity. It was a tough place to make a living though, and by 2004 when we sold the place, the maintenance had caused it to become an albatross around his neck. Chuck also anticipated the housing bust and believed that it was a good time financially to sell. As was the case with most of Chuck's predictions, he sure nailed that one.

Chuck was 50 years old when he first met 27 year old Donna. He had vowed to his business partner that he was giving up women and concentrating only on their business. Donna's first sight of Chuck was of him doing his neurolinguistic programming (right/left brain) lecture for her IRS Appeals Officer group in San Francisco, CA. She felt an immediate attraction, one that never went away. She went up to him after his lecture and stood at the edge of the crowd around him (there was ALWAYS a crowd around him after a lecture.) When it was her turn to talk, she asked if he would be interested in doing his program for the Federal Women's Program (even though it didn't pay much.) He said yes, and they met again when that program came around.

Since it didn't look like Donna would be seeing Chuck again, a friend of Donna's at the IRS asked her if she wanted to contact Chuck to do his lecture for the Federally Employed Women. Donna wasn't working with that organization, so that was a favor to her from Francie Jones. Chuck said yes, and as the time drew closer, a hand written note came to Donna from Chuck suggesting going out for a drink after the program. Donna couldn't wait. However, when Chuck showed up for the program, it was rather apparent that he didn't really recognize Donna, although he covered it fairly well. But then, when he brought his business partner, Anita, along for the drink afterward, it became apparent this was a business deal, not a "date." It wasn't long though before he shifted gears, sent Anita home, and turned the business drink into a real date. And a real date it was. 

Since  I had already been to three lectures by the first date, when people asked how we'd met, Chuck always liked to say that I was "a lecture groupie."

Chuck proposed marriage exactly two weeks and one day after that date that almost was not a date. Chuck always described this "as the most reckless thing I have ever done." Lucky for him... it worked out.  

The wedding, on Trinity Lake in Trinity Center, California, was about three months later on July 13, 1985.  

Originally educated as an Electronics Engineer at Stanford University, Chuck completed his MBA in Marketing and Management at the University of Santa Clara. After graduating with honors, he was granted a full Ph.D. scholarship. He also completed all but four courses for a second Ph.D. in Human Behavior from Newport University. Also educated as a hypnotherapist, he was a registered hypnotherapist with the American Guild of Hypnotherapists.

He was very active as an entrepreneur, having founded three manufacturing businesses, a finance company, a hypnotherapy practice, a computer business, a diesel stove and biodiesel processor business, two network marketing organizations, and at age 72, a financial insurance agency. He also taught management at the Graduate School of Business, University of Santa Clara, and was Director of their Center For Leadership Development. He began his industrial career as an electronics engineer with Ampex Corporation. He later became Sales Manager and then Marketing Manager of Vidar Corporation.

When Donna met Chuck, he had combined his education and experience in a unique training and consulting practice. He offered programs and workshops in most areas of general management, human development, interpersonal communication, finance, and marketing. He was probably the first student of Drs. Milton Erickson, Richard Bandler, and John Grinder to apply the concepts of neurolinguistic programming to the business setting. His talents were reflected in the wide range of fields in which he worked, including Communications, Leadership, Negotiations, Team Building, Behavior Modification, Stress Management, Dynamics of Change, Successful Selling, and Computer Integration. He was a talented consultant, trainer, and lecturer who had worked with hundreds of businesses, associations, public agencies, health organizations, and schools. He was a licensed pilot...land, sea, and glider. 

Chuck was also a force of nature...an absolute rock star in the business world and especially on the lecture circuit... In other words, Donna never stood a chance against that much charisma and magnetism...

Chuck was born on a gold mine in the Sierras of California. The gold mine was the passion of his Swedish mother, the daughter of a mining engineer, "Yah, we be rich." The family spent summers at the mine and winters at their home in San Carlos, California. Chuck had a half brother 21 years older than him, so he was effectively an only child. Chuck's father had been permanently disabled in WWI, so his job was mostly to take care of his wife and little boy. His mother was a chef for the wealthy people in the Bay Area and she was an avid poker player, winning more than she ever lost. She was the bread winner and an independent, strong-willed woman. She put Chuck to work at an early age washing dishes at the Country Club. He would often have to wash dishes until 2 a.m. when he would be falling asleep on his feet with the dishes in his hand. Chuck flunked the second grade because his parents dragged him to poker games at all hours of the night. As a result, he resented card games for the rest of life and almost never played any.

Chuck's best memory of his dad was that he ALWAYS came to every sporting event that Chuck participated in. It was his dad who took him to Stanford University (The Farm) and told him that that was where he was going to college. It was programmed into him at an early age. It was his mother who instilled in him that he could do ANYTHING he wanted to do. She would ask him if someone else had done it. If he said "yes," then she would say, "well then, you can do it too." 

The supreme self-confidence, work ethic, ambition, honesty, integrity, and moral fiber that was such a big part of Chuck started with these two fine people.