About Kathy:

My husband, Tim, and I live in the very small(1400 population) NE Iowa town of Elkader. Northeast Iowa is very different than the rest of IA. Our area is very hilly and scenic. Tim is 56, and I am 52. We are both teachers, but Tim retired a year ago from teaching Social Studies and Physical Education. He is still driving a bus route, at least until I retire. I teach Title 1 Special Reading in Grades 1-3. I have taught 32 years and hope to retire in another 2-3 years. We will probably work part time after retirement, but we look forward to having more flexibility to travel during the school year. We have been married 14 years, and between the two of us have six kids and 4 grandchildren. As many people know, we love the water, and luckily, live only about 20 miles from the "muddy" Mississippi. Spring and fall weekends are spent on our small cruiser named "Summer School". As soon as school is out, we move onto the boat for the summer. (We can tell people we went to "summer school" all summer! Wink ) Besides traveling with WM and other trips, we enjoy taking trips on our boat. We feel buying WM was one of the best things we've done, and we love our WM vacations.

FEATURED OWNERS QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

How long have you been a member of WorldMark? Where have you visited?
We bought our membership in 2001, but didn't take our first trip until 2003. That was a mistake! We missed out on 2 years of great WM vacations! Galena is our winter weekend getaway since it is only 2 hours away. We have been there at least 8 times. We have also been to Lake of the Ozarks 3 times, Steamboat Springs, Depoe Bay, Seaside, Las Vegas, and New Orleans. This summer we will be adding Estes Park, St. George, Pinetop and Grand Lake to our list.

What is your favorite WorldMark resort? What do you like about it?
That is a hard one. The ones we have been to all have their own special appeal. We love Galena since it is close, has jetted tubs and double sided fireplaces, and is a neat area; Lake of the Ozarks because it is right on the lake; Steamboat Springs because of the mountains; Las Vegas because it is, well LV!; New Orleans because of its handiness to the public transportation and the fun things to do and see; Seaside because of the big beautiful beach. And Depoe Bay, WOW, what's NOT to love about Depoe Bay? I could sit in front of the big windows and watch the ocean for hours!!

What things do you like to do when visiting this resort?
I'll pick 2 of my favorites here. We love Galena for cozy winter times, relaxing in front of the fire, enjoying the jetted tubs in the units, and the unique shopping in the historic town. At Depoe Bay, we loved watching the ocean and seeing the whales. We also enjoyed the fishing charter we went on, the neat little town, and the awesome scenery along the Oregon coast.

Tell us about the people you travel with - are they family? friends? co-workers? If you have children, what are their travel preferences?
My husband, Tim, and I usually enjoy traveling alone, but we have had friends join us at LOTO and Galena a few times. Most have been people from our dock that we spend the summers with, and we have great times with them. I would like to have my grown kids go somewhere with us, but right now it is hard for them to get away.

What is your most exciting vacation memory?
By now you know I have trouble coming up with one thing! Fishing at Depoe Bay, going up in a hot air balloon at Steamboat Springs, and all of our trip to Hawaii (before WM) are fantastic memories. AND our trips up and down the Mississippi River on our boat.

Have you ever had some kind of vacation disaster threaten to ruin your trip? Tell us your story!
This isn't WM related, but our most miserable trip was on our boat when we were headed to St. Louis. We had no air conditioning on the boat, and the heat index was 120 (humid) degrees during the days. The nights, which didn't cool down much, were spent with fans blasting us trying to cool off enough to sleep. We got as far as Hannibel, MO, and after a miserable week in that heat, gave up and headed home. We were lucky we didn't get sick from the heat!!

What activities do you and your family enjoy besides vacationing? (i.e. camping, walking, painting, etc)
Boating, fishing, wine tasting, just being together. We also like to gamble, but do so very conservatively!

Do you have a hobby? What is it and what makes it special to you?
I like to do lots of things, but I really enjoy reading, especially during the summer when I have lots of time. It's not unusual for me to read at least 12 books the 2 and 1/2 months we have off school. I also love to decorate! I am addicted to HGTV decorating programs.

Other than a WorldMark destination, what is your favorite place to visit for rest and relaxation?
Definitely our boat("Summer School") on the Mississippi River that we live on during the summer months. There is nothing like going to sleep and waking up right on the water.

If you could choose to live anywhere in the world, where would that be and why?
It would have to be somewhere on the ocean. I always tell people the "blue water calls to me" and if I didn't have family to keep me in Iowa, I would be living somewhere that has beautiful blue water. My dream would be to live on a yacht where I could just cruise to wherever I wanted to go!!

How did you choose to become a WorldMark owner? Or, why did you choose WorldMark over other timeshare companies?
Choosing to become a WM owner?? Well, to tell the truth, we had never heard of WM before we went to our presentation! We had been to a couple other Timeshare presentations through the years to get some "freebies", and we had absolutely NO intention of buying WM when we went to the presentation. It all sounded so great though, that we bought that day. I think the flexibility and all the different resorts made it especially appealing. I wouldn't recommend doing it the way we did, but we are so thankful it was WM when we did "get suckered in"!!

What do you enjoy most about being a WorldMark owner?
We really love having our "homes away from home". I think that feeling makes every trip more relaxing. It really ruins you for ever staying in a motel room again! We cook most of our meals to save money and having the accommodations already "paid for" really helps out with finances. We get to travel more and stay in much nicer places than we would without WM!

What do you like best about this WMO website community you have helped create?
The people here are fantastic! And the information is first rate! Many of the great people here are the ones who originally educated me on how to use our membership. Without the website, I know we wouldn't be getting the most out of WM. And the FUN we have on this 4M!!!!! This website is such an asset to WM, because the people here really do love the club and want it to be the best it can be.

What suggestions do you have to enhance it?
I wish more people would post reviews in the resort areas of the WM Owners website. The reviews are very helpful to know what a resort is really like and what there is to do in the area. I can't come up with any ideas to enhance the website, but the hard working people that run this site are always thinking and adding great new things to make it even better.

Do you have ideas for contests and giveaways that we could possibly incorporate in the future?
It would be fun to have a drawing for some WM Owners merchandise maybe once every quarter. And a contest with a laptop computer and free wireless access for summer months as the prize, with me as the winner, would be great!!

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Kathy
Galena 8x, LOTO 3x, Steamboat Springs, Seaside, Depoe Bay, Las Vegas, New Orleans.