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| SUNRAYS FEBRUARY 2014
ONLINE:
SCTXCA.ORG
W
hen a guy with a machine gun
put the barrel of the weapon
to Rocky Romero’s head in
Angola, Rocky was just hoping his Por-
tuguese was good enough to make the
carjacker understand that he could have
whatever he wanted. Rocky was working
there as an engineer on an oil exploration
team, and now laughs at the memory,
saying that, nevertheless, he loved liv-
ing there. In fact, he’s loved everywhere
he’s ever lived, and that’s a whole list
of places that includes Korea, Alaska,
China, France, South Africa, Portugal
and more.
His partner on many of those adven-
tures has been Sandi Phillips, who has
her own close-call memories of Angola:
like the time she was having lunch at a
beach café and someone threw a grenade
nearby. She crept out the back of the café
and drove home. Just another day in the
life of a geophysicist working around the
world to analyze seismic data that helped
Texaco decide where to drill for oil.
The two met in Angola and discovered a
mutual passion for travel—but not your
average two-week tour through Europe
kind of travel. When they retired in
2002, they put together a 15-year “bucket
list” of places they wanted to live for six
months, places where they would learn
the language and explore the country
in depth. They sold or gave away most
of what they had and started on their
list, over the years crossing off Portugal,
South Africa and France. Paris was San-
di’s favorite: “We had a little apartment
with two windows. If you leaned way
out, you could just see the Eiffel Tower.”
But, like all plans, life intervened. Four
years into their 15-year plan, the dog
who traveled everywhere with them got
sick, and they decided to scale back their
travels to include just North America,
PHOTOS BY BURTON ANES
The Vagabond Life
By Sandy Nielsen
Rocky Romero and Sandi Phillips have traveled the world, exploring, learning and living life to the fullest. They continue
to travel, but call Sun City Texas home.
