bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- I did my power walk when the morning temp was 59. We puttered around the motor home until about 10:30, then left for the Independence mall. We stopped in to buy covers for our new phones at a kiosk. We continued on to the Independence Post Office to mail several items. Bob found that there was a German restaurant in town, so we stopped for lunch at the Rhinelander Restaurant just off the square in downtown Independence.  

Bob ordered the beer sampler which had three light and three dark beer samples.

He really enjoyed them. I had the Jagersnitzel  with spatzle and Bob had the bratwurst with sauerkraut. We split a side order of red cabbage. Both of us took half back home to have for lunch tomorrow.

After lunch, as we were  driving out of town, we spotted a sign for the ‘Log Cabin Courthouse’, so we stopped to take some pictures.

This was the courthouse in Independence from 1827 and was moved to this spot in 1916.  Harry Truman was a judge there. He probably walked to work, as it is about a mile from his home.

Next we saw this mural.

From the quaint downtown we could see this spire.

Since it was so different, ( doesn’t it look like an alien vessel arrived from outer space?) we cruised over to take a look at it. This is the Temple of the Community Church of Christ, a reformed sect of the Mormon Church. We did not take the tour, but found out more about this later. This is the international headquarters of this sect of Mormons,( with about 220,000 members) who split with the Church in the 1800’s.  We heard later that they have a huge organ, a choir, and when the carillons ring it is very impressive.

We stopped at Wally World then returned home. We took a short nap, ate dinner walked the dogs, and watched TV. The weather was nice, in the low 80’s during the day, but the temp dropped pretty quickly when the sun set.

Sunday- The temp was a chilly 44 when we woke up. I did my power walk, and was happy to be moving quickly since the temp was so low. I really need to dig out a pair of gloves!

I have three articles that my editor had forwarded to me to update. These were articles written by another author, who never responded to him about the updates. He warned me that I would need to do a lot of work on them, as the previous author was not really very good. An understatement! Her articles ramble and the sentence structure is awful. So I finally decided to just write my own and not update these.

So after paying bills, I started research on the first article and started writing. I have the first article about a third of the way done. I am not going to have much time to work on these until the first week of October, as we will be doing Genealogy all this week.

After lunch, we packed up the motor home and moved to site 10, our 50 amp site that we have had reserved for the week. We settled in to the new site. It took quite a bit of maneuvering to get set up, as the site has a tilt to the right and a downward slant. Bob was able to use blocks to get us situated. We are now right next door to all the SKP Genies activities.

At 4 PM, we took our folding table next door, as Bob Ed had needed some more tables. We ‘registered’. There are 12 rigs, with 25( two extra staying a motel and one single lady in her class B motor home) people at this small rally. Dinner tonight was included in the rally fee. It was a catered BBQ dinner with ribs, brisket, and BBQ beef. Hey, this is the mid-west! Everything is beef! There was also baked beans, coleslaw, and potato salad ( which Bob could not eat). Viva Lee Ed had baked a coffee cake for dessert.

Announcements were made around the campfire. It rapidly became cold, so it was a short evening of chit-chat.  We returned to the motor home and watched TV. We also started packing up our lunch to take with us in the morning and packed up our laptops to haul with us. Tomorrow’s destination is the National Archives in Kansas City.

Monday- We had to be ready to leave by 8:30, but I still got in my power walk. We caravanned to the National Archives. The building does not look like much from the outside, but the inside is renovated. This is the repository for the mid-west states.

They are closed on Mondays, but they opened for us. How great was that! We had a class on Ancestry.com and a class on OPA( online public access) for the Archives. Both were interesting. We worked until they closed at 2:30. They have institutional access to Ancestry.com, which was great. I still am unable to find info on my paternal grandmother, Melinda Jacob, but went back several more generations in my maternal grandmother’s family. Bob found that his cousin who had been working on his mother’s family, had a breakthrough, finding a lot of interesting info in England. So we both came home happy!

We returned to the motor home and read our books and just relaxed. We ate dinner, then went to the campfire for dessert and a discussion. Great time to ask questions about genealogy research.

After dark ,we returned home and watched TV.

Tuesday– I was able to get in a power walk again today. A different day altogether. We left at 8:45 to caravan to the Mid-west Genealogy Library in Independence. We arrived just as they were opening the doors, and a gentleman named Henri took us on an orientation tour of the facility. Once that was completed, we grabbed computers to use Ancestry.com. Here, we were only allotted 120 minutes, way to short a time. I found a few items, but noting really significant. Bob did not have any luck either. We both were disappointed. The strength of this library is their books, not the internet access.

So I went upstairs to check on books with Massachusetts information. Most of the library is in the 900’s of the Dewey Decimal System, as that is where the Genealogy books are coded.  I found a set of books which had people of Irish decent putting newspaper notices in looking for people. While interesting, it did not help me at all.

We finally just gave up and left at 1:30. We returned home and walked the dogs. We ate dinner, then went to the campfire to join the rest of the group. It was sprinkling intermittently. The humidity has increased again and it is pretty awful out, although, not that warm, in the 60’s. We have several thunderstorms overnight.

Wednesday- Bob and I had decided to go back to the National Archives. There, we have unlimited internet access on Ancestry and the other sites. Jennifer, the gal who gave the class on Monday, happily welcomed us back. We signed in and then went to the vending room. There we could drink our coffee and work at the same time. In the Genealogy room, there are no drinks or food allowed.

I was able to fill in some info. Bob found a few items also. We left around 1:30 again, as we were starting to get frustrated. At least, we were able to use the internet all day.

We stopped at Walmart, then returned to the motor home. Bob took a nap, and I worked on updating some info in my genealogy program. I actually had a breakthrough, as I found my paternal grandmother’s father and siblings names. So maybe  tomorrow I will be able to find more on this branch of the family. I also scanned some info and placed it into the genealogy program.

It was my turn to bring dessert, so I took Sharon’s strawberry dessert. Thanks for the recipe Sharon, it is was a hit!

Thursday-  We took off at 8:30 for the National Achieves again. The internet is better there as it seems that the Archives have full access to Ancestry.com. My cousin Diane had sent me some more info on my paternal grandmother, and that was a major breakthrough for me. I was able to follow the line up the the late 1500’s, so that was pretty exciting. One thing I can say is thank goodness for birth control. These poor women were pregnant every single year, having 12-15 kids. They had to be exhausted! So now I have a whole different branch of the family to work on…

Bob has been having an interesting time also. He is eligible for the SAR  (sons of the revolutionary war) several times over! He has been working on all of those family facts.

On our way there we passed this mural every day. Most murals are pretty and showing some history, well this one is definitely different!

We left about 2:30 and returned to the motor home. Walked the dogs and had to meet up with the rest of the group at 4:45 for dinner. Yeah, we are officially old folks who eat early! The group is going to Golden Corral for dinner, ( included in our rally fee). We  returned back for a campfire and group discussion on genealogy problems. No dessert this evening, as we had that at the Golden Corral. This Golden Corral was much larger than the one in Waldorf, with a lot more food, unfortunately, not great food. This is not one of our favorite restaurants.

The Wagon Master, Bob Ed’,s sister-in-law does genealogy also, and she came up with a little tree with a saying in it. She made up bags(red, filled with the following items) and gave us the following items:

“ A kit to help you solve your brick wall”.

Red bag– to help you get it all together.

Gum– to help you ‘stick’ to your research.

Lifesavers– Food for thought during the day.

Water– for your ‘dry’ spells.

Starburst- To give you a sudden ‘burst’ of energy during the day.

Penny– For asking other Genies for their thoughts.

Clip- So you can save your memories of this rally.

Match- To light your ‘fire’ when you feel burned out.

Thumbtack– to remind you that you need to stay sharp.

Candle– To light your way through the stacks or archives.

Taffy- to remind you to not bite off more than you can chew.

Smarties– To eat when you start mixing up the names in your family branches.

Eraser- to use to cover up the mistakes you found after eating the Smarties.

Hugs and Kisses- To remind you that you are a SKP Genies and you are loved.

Aspirin– In case you break through your brick wall and your heart cannot take the excitement!

Button- so you can ‘button’ your lips when a stranger wants to talk about their family lime for hours.

Very cute idea!

 

Friday-  Bob woke up feeling awful. We think he had some bell pepper in dinner last evening and he had symptoms from that plus he was having a episode of the A-fib. So he stayed home and vegetated all day.

I went to the National Archives again. I found some information and put it into the computer. About 1:30, I was falling asleep, so I headed back to the motor home and we all took a nap. The dogs love naps!

Bob still did not feel well in the evening, so he skipped the campfire. I went and picked up the pictures that the group photographer had been taking all week.

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