Hawthorne Travels

Here at Hawthorne, we like to work hard... and play hard, too! When they're not in the office, you can find many of our team members out traversing the globe. Take a peek into some recent travels by the Hawthorne team:  

Dan Kowalski (Managing Supervisor) in Utah: 

This winter, Dan joined his girlfriend and her family on a ski trip in Utah, marking his first time skiing out west and his second-ever ski experience. Skiing on the skyscraping western mountains was a new adventure and an opportunity to tackle his fear of heights. After a day of making friends and brushing up on his skills in ski school, Dan hit the slopes with his girlfriend and her family. He started with a green run but was quickly graduated to blues. Ski lift after ski lift, mountain top after mountain top – including the tallest mountain in Park City that Dan insists was in space – Dan conquered blue run after blue run and worked up his confidence and courage to voluntarily tackle a black diamond. After a few spills, Dan found his edges and finished the Park City black diamond with a rush of adrenaline and victory. In between the ski runs, there was quality time spent with his girlfriend and her family, enjoying the charming downtown Park City restaurants, atmosphere, and shops as well as the resort hot tub to help recover after a long day of skiing. 

Anna VanWingerden (Account Executive) in the Netherlands:  

This past Christmas, Anna and her family hopped on a plane to the Netherlands! They spent a week in the city of Gronigen visiting their extended family, ice skating, taking walks around the quiet downtown center, and eating lots of fries for lunch (a Dutch tradition!). They later took a detour on the way home and went to Belgium for a couple days. After walking around the cities of Brugge and Ghent (and eating lots of waffles) they headed back to the U.S. for New Year’s Eve. Overall, it was a relaxing holiday, and Anna had a wonderful time with her family! 

Richard Ray (Managing Supervisor) at the Joshua Tree National Park:  

Richard fled the November rain of Chicago last fall for the desert heat of Palm Springs. Having recently been diagnosed with asthma, the trip at times felt more like an 1800s journey of convalescence than a hiking and golf trip with college buddies.  

Despite his pulmonary distress, he enjoyed the winding canyon trails and scenic waterfalls of the Sonoran Desert, played 18 holes on a roadrunner-infested golf course where he was paired with a lovely, retired (and much more skilled) nurse from British Columbia—and explored the near-Martian landscape of the beautiful Joshua Tree National Park. True to his Midwestern roots, he found the park itself, with its craggy cliffs and bulging boulders, more walkable than any city he’d explored in Southern California.  

While Gram Parsons is the most tragically related musician to Joshua Tree, many hikers passing the opposite direction of Richard’s party were ecstatic to see his vintage Joey Ramone T-shirt. At one point on the trail, a father who was tending to his daughter’s injured ankle shifted his attention to Richard’s shirt and enthusiastically shouted “Joey!”  

After a fine dinner at a classic Palm Springs steakhouse on his last night in town (plus a few stops at the regional delicacy Del Taco along the way), Richard was ready to return to the more pedestrian-friendly streets and the fall foliage of Chicago. He’d love, however, to return to Joshua Tree some day and go stargazing. Next time he won’t forget his inhaler.