The Pathway

• Tipi's Retreat pages may take a few minutes to load. When the animated icon of your browser stops moving and/or when the text at the bottom left hand corner of your browser reads "Document Done", the page is fully loaded. Upon returning to the page, it will download much faster having been boosted by your browser's cache.



• To enjoy the full graphic layout in both text and graphics, your browser window should be expanded about three times the width of the top picture on the homepage. Everything will look alright otherwise, but you may miss some of the art techniques made by sculptured text, or the panaroma of the pictures within the gallery.



• The underlined text in all pages indicates a link which will take you to the area described. You may like to view the entire page you are visiting before taking any of the links. This will give you a good vision of what the entire site is about before allowing yourself to be whirled away to any particular area within it.



• On the lower portion of every page there is a table of links which will take you to all the other pages without having to backtrack through the page you are currently viewing.



• Midi music supplied on all pages is "looped" and will continue to play as long as you are on that page. Each page has it's own musical backdrop. With Netscape, you may turn off the music while on a page: go to the Crescendo image near the lower part of the page and click on the stop/pause button-- the one that looks like an aerial view of a toaster. Internet Explorer browsers will have to revert to using their "volume" on their computers to control the music. Sorry Microsoft.



• The bookmark page is supplied as a convenience for my visitors who may like to use the site for some of their referencing needs. Suggestions are welcome, but I cannot guarantee I will add them to the site until I have tested them thoroughly to avoid linking to sights which return "busy server" advisories with regularity. I have determined to make this area congenial to those who need information on the spur of the moment as well as to those who would like to put their feet up and lounge around. To see the fullness of the sites included on that one page would take many cyberhours. For that reason I suggest bookmarking that area and coming back to it later in order to explore it more fully.



• There are a few links to my website which are only referenced from the page in which they originated. You will have to return to the reference page in order to link to the adjacent pages.

I would like to thank numerous unknowns on the WWW who have helped me prepare, envision and build Tipi's Retreat; and those with names and e-mail addresses known to me. They always seem to be the ones everyone thanks last but they are also the ones that do the most by the time you are ready to go "public". I commend you on taking the time to offer your help when I responded to your requests to comment on your pages. I have been inspired by their efforts and their generosity. Truly the internet has a heart and I am glad to be part of it. You always get what you give.

Like most, I have scavenged a little in my creative efforts, but for the most part, I preferred to start from scratch - - it's that "old fashioned" part of me. If anyone would like to use any of the graphics I have made, feel free to hammer them onto your hard drive. I would be pleased to be privy to your intentions but I don't demand it.

Credit is given here to Iowa-born artist, Grant Wood, for his memorable painting, American Gothic with which I took many liberties in order to accomodate my own inspiration.

To photographer Ben Marra, whose photos, books, and television documentary has so touched me ... I thank you for your correspondence and for allowing me to link to your site and use one of your graphics on my site. I am honored. I join the thousands of people everywhere who have been enlightened with your cause, and the beautiful way you have chosen to promote it.

Jerry! You're great! Thanx for putting up with me all the times I was glued to the computer while I struggled and indulged myself with html and all the other components of these pages. And thank you for taking such extraordinary pictures, past and future, to place on my site. We made it happen.

And thank you friends and family for taking me seriously. pampering me, prodding me, and hunting down names and information for me in order to feed those inspirations. Many have been the times that a flurry of activity took place all over the web in order to help Tipi find or do something; I won't forget you. It's great to be in the company of such good people.

Last, but not least, a special thank you to Sihope Communications for their never failing support as my service provider and for offering the space for these pages. You're doing a great job and I'm happy to be on your rollcall.