Vernon Hills seniors find joy in the journey

A small plaque hangs on the front of her electric scooter. "Find Joy in the Journey," it says.

A perfect little maxim for Rochelle and Ray Ogaz.

They found love and a new life about five years ago at a retirement community in Colorado.

Ray was a volunteer in the dining room. As he set forks on the left and knives on the right, he spotted a pretty woman he'd never seen before. She had bright eyes and a radiant smile. One of those teeth-flashing, happy-face, ear-to-ear smiles.

Wasting no time, Ray planted a decisive and unexpected kiss on Rochelle's cheek. "Welcome to our community," he said.

She was smitten. "After that kiss," she says. "I didn't let him go."

"I decided I needed to do some volunteering in the dining room too," she said with a wink.

They dated for a number of months, but secretly.

"We wanted to avoid the scuttlebutt," Ray says.

Ray is the oldest of eight kids. The 78-year-old Korean War veteran worked 32 years as a warehouse dispatcher for General Motors in Los Angeles. He was married to Belle for 30 years before she died.

Rochelle, a Chicago native, worked on mainframe computers for a "whole bunch of companies for a whole lot of years." Newly single, she had come to Denver with her daughter.

They got married in that very dining room a short time later. "It was the first and only wedding ever held in that room," Ray said. Leaving the mountains behind, they moved back here to be closer to Rochelle's family.

And now you might see them motoring quietly around Vernon Hills in their battery-powered scooters. Ray always takes the lead with their dog Pee Wee tagging along. At 15-years-old, the Pekingese is in his golden years, too.

After five years of marriage, Rochelle still gushes over Ray. "He's got a huge heart," she says. "He's gentle, nurturing and giving. This my first true love. I've waited 60 years for this."