After three days on the road, we arrived in Palm Springs, California.  In those days, it was customary for the host location for these meetings to provide housing for those travelling, whether to ATG (All Team Gathering), EC Meetings, Suitcase Team members, or whatever.  On some occasions, various members might opt to stay in motels or hotels, but the option to stay with local people was almost always available.  I have met some most wonderful people in our travels.

The home we stayed at in Palm Springs was built in the early to mid-fifties, if I recall correctly.  Nothing unusual about that, but what WAS unusual was that here we were in 2000, and the home was decorated in retro-fifties style furnishings.  They were totally cool (if a bit uncomfortable to me).  Scott loved them!  Even today, 12 years later, Scott still talks about those furnishings, especially when we see similar items on TV or in a furniture store, or what-not!  What I especially remember was that the backyard was sloped up away from the house, just a little, and about 25 feet up this slope was a jacuzzi for two!  A hot tub!  Scott loves 50′s architecture and furnishings.  I adore hot tubs!  And since this was January, and we’d had a snow storm impeding our progress our first day of our trip, that hot tub was MOST inviting!  I spent a lot of time out there the two nights we were there.

The other thing I recall was the home of Rev. Pelletier  I recall entering through a hallway to a great room, or perhaps an open layout room that was tiled not with ceramic tile but with slate.  The back wall was all glass doors, which could be opened out onto a lanai, edged with stone fronted seating (sculpted to look almost natural)  I believe there was a water feature of some nature out there.  It was a most motivational place for us to meet and discuss the business of Excel!  We could sit outside in the cool, refreshing air, while at the same time sheltered above from the full force of a Palm Springs sun (even though it WAS winter).  I remember a great number of us gathered around the tables chatting about various bylaws and efforts we were undertaking.  In those days (and I do not believe anything has changed) anyone was welcome to sit in on our EC meetings.  We did from time to time, I think, have need of an “Executive Session” when guests would be asked to excuse us to discuss some issue of private nature.  One such was when we had to decide to do the UNTHINKABLE… discipline a team.

An aside, here.  In 2000, my parents lived in San Juan Capistrano, which is in the southern part of Orange County.  I wanted to visit them while we were in California, but our week was so packed with things, that there was just no way.  Instead, Mom & Dad drove up to Palm Springs on Thursday (or maybe it was Wednesday), and Karla, Scott and I spent the evening with them, wandering around downtown Palm Springs, then finding someplace to eat.  Later, back at their motel, we transferred some belongings from their car to my van.  With what we had brought with us on our trip, and what they brought from San Juan Cap. our van was full for the drive back to Omaha!  The visit was a bittersweet one, too.  This was the first time Mom & Dad had met Scott.  In 1996, when I came out to Mom & Dad (unfortunately over the telephone, long distance from Indiana) Mom had firmly told me that they never, ever wanted to meet any of my “boyfriends or whatever you call them”.  At the time of our visit in Palm Springs, our relationship was still very strained.  While I know they knew Scott was my “boyfriend or whatever”, we just didn’t address the topic, other than “This is Scott, Scott, this is my mom & dad”.  The memory of this night still has power to sadden me, even today, and as I write, I feel tears threatening.  The truth is, the years from 1996 to 2003 are lost and I can’t have them back, at least as far as my relationship with Mom & Dad is concerned.  But in 2003 when Mom & Dad moved back to Council Bluffs, I refused to allow their attitude to impede my relationship with Scott.  In short order, Mom & Dad fell for Scott almost as deeply as I had.  Now, ahem, back to the story!

On Friday, we wrapped up our meeting, and departed for Wrightwood, CA.   I wish that I could remember the name of the facility at which we held that Southlands Excel Weekend.  It was perhaps one of the most beautiful of sites for an Excel weekend! But then, I’ve always loved mountains and pine trees, and cool, dry mountain air.  The smell of pine needles in the sun, and being crushed underfoot as one walks…  I know I had a great weekend there!  I remember a reference made in one of the talks about people “armed with KJV Assault Bibles the size of a suitcase!”  I remember, too, that the locals and my fellow EC members from the more southern climes had a lot of problems, complaining about the severe cold!  For those of us from Nebraska/Iowa it was not so bad (except, I suspect for Karla, who even though she’s a veteran of the deadly Nebraska winter, get’s cold anytime the temperature drops below 85 – just kidding, Karla!!!!)

All too soon our Excel exercise came to an end, and the Three Musketeers loaded up and headed for home!  I remember that first day, I was determined we would make it to Arizona!  Normally this would not be a problem but the weekend officially didn’t end until after 4 pm!  Our drive took us north from Wrightwood through Victorville to I40 in Barstow.  I remember much of the drive, especially once we left the mountains, how flat it was!  And people say Nebraska is flat!  (A few years later, Scott and I drove through this region, this time with my Mom & Dad in a rented RV, and once again, we were under deadline and driving far into the night!)  We eventually arrived in Kingman, and stayed in the same motel we had stayed at on our trip out a week before.

On Monday, we were up early.  Our plan was to drive as far into Colorado as possible.  We made it to Colorado Springs.  If you recall, back on the first day or so of our stay in California (see Part I) Karla, Scott & I had made a side trip to West Hollywood, to the headquarters of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (our denomination) where we had purchased a cassette tape audio series entitled “The Erotic Contemplative” with an accompanying study guide.

OK, I blew it. I promised three a week, and last week I only made 2 posts. My apologize to those of you who are counting… ARE any of you actually counting? Probably not. On the other hand, the week before I made 4 posts, so the last two weeks AVERAGE out to THREE a week… So, I’m good, after all. Right? Of COURSE, right!

One of the reasons I missed a post last week was last week was the week Scott and I flew off to Florida! We had a great week in Daytona Beach with my cousin Kathy and her husband Don, and with my Aunt Jeanie and Uncle Lew.

Friday, the 20th, we flew down from Omaha to Orlando. When we were driving over to the airport, the temp here in Omaha was a mild 9 degrees. Wind chill factor was below zero. We landed to a pleasant 74 degrees in Orlando. So when the rental car agent recommended an upgrade to a convertible, I was very much in favor, especially with a 70% discount!

We headed off to Daytona Beach with the top down, and of course, no GPS so we immediately got lost. We ended up going east out of town, and ended up in Titusville, where we had lunch at a delightful little cafe, Caffe Chocolat.

Saturday began with the requisite morning swim in Kathy’s pool… brrrrrrrrrrr! No, it wasn’t requisite, and I’m the only one foolish enough to attempt it!

After lunch at the Ocean Deck, where I ate my first oysters AND aligator meat, followed by fish tacos (I’m in HEAVEN!) Kathy suggested we go to the Daytona Beach race track. Now let me tell you something. I’ve always considered racing BORRRRRRINNG! Watching cars go round and round on a track on television is a magnificent soporific as far as I am concerned. But, in hopes of being a courteous guest, Scott and I agreed, so off we went to the track.

At Daytona International Speedway you can actually do a ridealong with a racer in one of the cars. Or, if you want to pony up $475 you can actually DRIVE one of the cars. While we were there there were several people who’d coughed up the half k for the drive so we watched them. In addition, a couple of the racers’ mechanics were putting two cars through their paces. Those in the ride along or driving experience were going about 140 mph, and the mechanics were doing 200 plus (or at least so I am told).

For all you race fans out there, and especially for YOU my big brother Bob… now I get it. O! M! G! Just standing there watching those cars, hearing them coming, FEELING them coming, and passing was a huge adrenelin rush! One senses the raw power somewher deep within, viscerally.

Afterwards, we drove down to Ponce Inlet where, it is my understanding, some 500 or more years ago Ponce de Leon first came ashore in Florida, we stopped in for drinks (I was driving, so Diet Coke only for me).

Later Saturday night we ate dinner at Carribean Jacks (or something like that) for dinner (crab cake and cold shrimp) where I saw my next purchase. A small little boat off on the other side of the marina… I think it was only about 75 feet or so and about 3 stories high…

We wrapped up the evening with a fantastic round of WII Bowling (3 full games). I want one!

Yesterday, it was home to Omaha and Council Bluffs and our little girl Princess Nikki! Tonight we pick up Ixchel and our little family is together again!

This has been a hard summer for us.  We’ve had a great deal of fun, too.  In fact, we’ve had so much fun this summer, it’s kind of hard to explain why I say it’s been a hard one.

I for one didn’t think the summer was particularly hot, though so many people did complain about that here in the Metro Omaha area.  So it wasn’t the climate so much.  The flooding Missouri River, which was in flood stage for 2 months and has done a great deal of infrastructural damage in this area never impacted us.  We live far enough from the river that it would take a great deal more flooding than experienced… virtually a “Great Flood” of “Noah’s proportion” to get us wet!

I guess what made this a hard summer for us, well to be precise for me personally, was the decision we made in July to stop Dad’s Alzheimer’s medications.  We came to the point by mid-July that it just didn’t make sense to continue pumping him with those meds.  They had ceased to provide any benefit for his mind.  He didn’t know who any of us were; he couldn’t string together a single thought.  It was, in the end, the right thing to do.  We knew the ramifications of that.

Two weeks ago today, Dad took ill.  He was admitted to the hospital with a bowel obstruction.  By Friday of that week, it was clear to the doctor that medical intervention alone would not relieve this obstruction, and that surgery would be required.  We decided that surgery was not appropriate given the circumstances.  My brothers were called, and Paul came from Houston immediately.  The doctor removed the hydration line from Dad.

But Dad is a powerful man.  His body is strong, even at 86, one could feel the power in his upper body.  At one point in the hospital dad grasped my forearm in both hands and started to bend… I’m sure my arm would have broken if I had not extricated myself!  And the doctor’s all commented on Dad’s “constitution” being that of a young horse.

By last Tuesday, the doctor (a different one than the one who treated Dad Thursday through Sunday) heard sounds indicating that the bowel was clearing up.  We decided it still would not be wise to restart hydration, in part because his kidney’s were probably shutting down due to 4 days without hydration.  But, inexplicably that afternoon Dad WAS rehydrated.  When challenged, the doctor told us WE could decide to remove the hydration, and that the decision to do so or not was “ethically neutral”.  Thanks Doc.

While we did eventually leave the hydration line in over night, when Dad went back to his Assisted Living facility on Wednesday, he did so without hydration.  The staff there offered him water and swabbed his mouth. 

Saturday morning I stopped in to see Dad and he was asleep.  I was unable to awaken him.  On Sunday I went back, and he was still asleep, and his breathing was very labored.  I made the decision to stay with him overnight, because I was certain the end was near.

During the night I had a dream.  It was a very odd dream.  Or maybe it wasn’t a dream.  In this… dream?… I awoke, about 2:30 am.  There were 3 people in the room, with Dad and I.  I remember my eyes were virtually glued shut with sleep, the way they are when awakened at 3 in the morning.  I blinked repeatedly trying to clear them, and peered at the man and 2 women.  One woman was on the far side of the bed, leaning over Dad, whispering.  There was a man I was certain was Uncle Lyle standing with his left back to me at the foot of the bed, and another woman between him and the bed, mostly obscured.

I was certain it was Uncle Lyle, and when he turned his head as though to look out the window, thus revealing his left profile to me, I was sure it Lyle… that strong Strom profile of both his and Dad.  Then I fell asleep again.

At 7 am, I woke up again; Dad was breathing very heavily, but really no apparent change from the night before.  I stepped out to get a cup of coffee, and stopped at the registration table to see if Uncle Lyle had been there in the middle of the night.  Of course, he hadn’t been!  Returning to Dad’s room, I stopped to chat with a woman my age who was there for pretty much the same reason as I was… her father was in hospice and near the end.  About 7:20, I stepped back into Dad’s room to check on him.

Dad had passed away in those 20 minutes I was out of the room.

I may have had an odd dream that night.  But I really do believe that it was Grandpa Strom and Grandma Strom and Mom come to get him.  And I believed he waited until I left so he could slip away.

I knew Sunday it was the end.  At 2 that day before I left to go home to get some things before returning, I told Dad he had been a marvelous father to the 3 of us, and that he had won the battle he always claimed to be fighting.  I told him he could stop fighting, it was over, and he’d won.  And I told him, “If you see someone come for you, you go with them, and go happy!”

I guess he did.

Wednesday morning, Scott and I both slept late.  By the time we awoke, the sun had risen far enough that there were no more oranges, no more melons and no more golden hues to the sunrise.  The sun was full in the eastern sky.  It was 6 am!  As has become tradition here, I went out, fired up the generator, and started coffee.  Cindy got up (yes, she was up before Juline) and we talked while the coffee brewed.  About the time the pot finished brewing, Juline came out of the tent, ready for coffee.

AFter breakfast, we hurried into Laramie for a few last minute supplies, then back to camp.  All in all, our afternoon was a lazy one.  Some of us read books, I finally figured out why my phone was no longer downloading email, so I read email for a while.  About 3 pm, as seems normal for this location, the sky clouded up, and then, it happened.  We heard the rumbling of a truck.  And INTERLOPERS pulled in to OUR campsite and decided to set up shop between us and the road!  The nerve of them! I sat in front of our trailer under our awning and smiled at them, trying not to let my frustration at their intrusion show. 

It apparently did not work.  One of them walked down and introduced himself.  “I noticed you looked a little put out by our choosing this location, so I thought I better come down and introduce ourselves.  I’m Cole.”

“Oh, no, not at all!” I lied.  “There’s plenty of room here.  As long as we can get in and out of our site by vehicle, it should be okay!”  So then the other three came down.

“This is Erik” Cole introduced a grizzled man who joined us.  “He renovates Fleetwood Travel trailers.”  I was admiring the Avion they were pulling.  A 35 foot, 3 axle trailer from the 50s.  They quickly introduced the other two travelling with them, Heinrich (yes, a German) and Sterling, two men from New York City!  Here, in Wyoming!

We chatted about the wind, and the rain that was falling gently, not enough to drive us under cover.  After about 15 minutes, we noticed the breeze picking up, and Scott and I headed back to our trailer to give our new neighbors time to set up.  Half way to our trailer, I thought to myself “We should really put up the awning in case this wind gets stronger…” and with that a gust of wind came along, and ripped our awning from the side of our trailer!  The support trellises that hold it in place were shattered!

Scott and I and Cindy stood holding the awning for 10 minutes discussing what needed to be done, and had just decided there was nothing for it but to get a knife and cut the awning from the side of the trailer, when along came Erik of grizzled trailer renovation fame with a box of tools.  Ten minutes and considerable swearing later, we slid the awning from the side of the trailer, rolled it up and slid it under the trailer.  We’ll take it home with us and hopefully it won’t be too hard for Scott and I to fix on our own, once we get the new parts. 

And Erik, Cole, and the two New Yorkers are MORE than welcome to be our neighbors for the duration!

By this time, I was also painfully aware that, while the generator was running, it was not supplying power to the trailer, which meant the battery was not charging, and my computer had died and was not recharging!  Oh, grumble of grumbles.

At 5:30, we went down and signed in at “Camp Central”, then ate dinner at the Potluck!  My goodness it was scrumptious!  Mark from the Denver County Sheriff’s office joined us for dinner as did two women that Cindy and Juline had met.

I’m not 100% sure, but I think maybe canine participants out-number human participants here this year!  So many dogs!  Gracie, the adorable 6 month old dachsund, newest owner of Cindy & Juline of course, and the 2 dogs, Maxie and somebody or other with our new neighbors.  Grace is here with Mark who had wanted to leave her home, but she insisted she was NOT too old to go camping one more year.  And then there are poodles, and Corgi/Black lab mixes and pits and well, just dozens upon dozens of canines!

Scott and I sat around a fire with the new neighbors and had a beer and some good conversation.  Then returned to our trailer to prepare for bed.  We turned on the water pump to brush our teeth and were greeted by a pitiful gurgly grinding.  Well, we knew we’d be replacing THAT soon.

I fell asleep thinking “In the morning, we are going to hook up and call it quits.  I am most definitely NOT having fun any more!

Well, here we are at 2 pm on Thursday, Day 2 of Rendezvous, and we’re staying where we are.  The water pump is working fine, the generator is once again doing its thing, and all is well with the world!  Now, let’s see if I can get connected and get this post online!

Ah, dear friends, the stress of trying to meet a daily Blog posting deadline!  So sorry I didn’t get one written, let alone published, yesterday!  I shall attempt to explain why!

Sunday evening shortly after posting “Day 2”, the weather began to turn on us… just a little.  First it rained.  It felt so wonderful, sitting in the comfort of our trailer with all the windows open, watching rain pour on the mountains!  But, then, over night Sunday into Monday, the winds picked up.  Scott and I had forgotten already from years past that wind is the natural state of things here in the mountains of Wyoming!

We were awakened a couple of times during the night by the wind.  Once was to close the windows so that the venetian blinds would stop rattling.  And the second time, the trailer was rocking so much that I couldn’t sleep.

Monday dawned again for us in shades of orange and melon.  But having enjoyed our previous evening’s rum & coke perhaps a teensy bit too much, I slept in until the multi-hued sunrise was nearly over.

Scott and I spent the morning doing a major cleaning of the trailer, going through all the cabinets and picking out things we just no longer needed, and straightening up.  We’ve not done this to this degree before, so it took a couple of hours. 

With our burst of high-energy cleaning out of the way, there was nothing to do but wait for our friends to join us from Omaha.  So, we dozed… but the wind kept up it’s blasting, and the trailer rocked, and the trailer swayed.  And we grew quite tired of the wind.  I knew our friends, who would be staying in a tent would be miserable in that wind… gale force it seemed at times.  So, about 3 pm, we hooked up the trailer, and went in search of a better sight.  We found one with a stunning view, and less vulnerable to the wind than our first site.

We were just moving the second load of stuff down to the new location (Linda, you’ll know our new place… Ft. Collins had a couple of trailers here the year before last, just where the road turns sharply to head up to the meadow where we have stayed the past 3 years) when our friends called and asked for a little help, as they were close but not quite sure of the way in to camp.  So we drove up to the corner where 701 meets 701c, then guided our friends in to our site.

By 6:30, we had their tent set up and our trailer more or less situated, and Scott began cooking.

This morning, since Rendezvous hasn’t officially started, we just sort of puttered around, drove up to the rest stop, then down to Laramie for some more supplies.  Returning to camp, we set up the external shower, and have spent the rest of the day just doing what we do best when camping.  Absolutely nothing.  Sitting.  Chatting.  Playing with the puppy (our friends brought up their 6 month old dachsund pup.)

All in all, our trip is going about the way a camping trip should!

We still aren’t getting the best cell signal up here.  I’m a little surprised by that, because last year it was relatively strong.  Unfortunately, this means that we have to play catch as catch can when it comes to uploading.  Right now, my cell phone is dead.  When it has recharged sufficiently, I’ll plug it in to the computer and see if we can’t get connected.

This morning, I awoke to a glorious sunrise streaming through our back window.  One of the selling points for this trailer was that the back of the trailer is a big picture window.  Saturday night we forgot to close the curtains, and so this morning, every shade of orange from bright fire orange down through cantaloupe, and numerous beams of light pink burst through the trailer to our bedroom at the front of the trailer… and into my eyes.  It is mornings like this that are the reason why Scott and I love camping up here… well, why I love camping up here.  Scott slept until well after the sun had hauled itself into the sky and put away it’s dawn blankets of orange.

We drove down to Laramie today to fill up our five 6 gallon water jugs and to buy groceries for our week.  It was a nice drive.  The mountains here had a lot more moisture than in years past, and the grass is still relatively green.  Herds of cattle grazed near the road… really near the road… we had to slow to 5 mph to creep through them, as some were napping on the verge.  We drove through gulches where in years past nary a drop of water was to be found, to find this year flowing streams burbling along.  Alas, the nasty pine beetles have killed upwards of 50% of the forests up here, and so the green canopy of pines that I always love to see are mottled dark, drab brown and green.  I guess it’s only a matter of time before they all die.

Arriving back in camp after our journey, we followed two pickups pulling the camp gear, so after running up to our trailer and putting our groceries away, Scott and I went back down to “Camp Central” and helped them put up the big canopies and stage tent.  Since Scott and I were new to this, we got to be the guinea pigs.  They handed us the instructions, and sat back and watched as we directed the younger guys in how to put the canopies together.  Amazingly simple!  The purpose of this test was to see if the new typed out instructions could be followed easily by someone who’d never done it before.

Setting up the stage tent was more complicated, and we merely assisted with that one.

We left after a couple of hours… I was feeling the strain of the higher altitude and the direct heat.  I’m sunburned now!

We’ve spent the rest of the day doing the other thing I really enjoy about up here… relaxing.  Dozing. Puttering.  We’ll finish up the evening with a rousing set of Cribbage, and call it a night, probably before the last rays of the sun leave the sky.

Last weekend was Memorial Day weekend.  Scott and I celebrated by getting away for a 4 day camping trip in our trailer (we really don’t do any other type these days… though that could change!)

I had never travelled to North East Iowa.  And that is definitely my loss!  We drove up to McGregor, Iowa, home to Pikes Peak State Park.  And very nearby is Effigy Mounds National Monument.  Effigy Mounds was our true destination.  There are 200 burial and ceremonial mounds on this site, some in the shape of bears, others like eagles in flight.  Still others are conical, or other geometric shapes.  In this part of Iowa, and in surrounding areas of Wisconsin and Minnesota are literally thousands of mounds.  I never realized the extent to which these mounds are scattered around the country, particularly along and east of the Mississippi.  They number in the 10s of thousands!  So many have been lost, plowed under to make way for our farms and our cities.

It rained a lot while we were there.  On the first day, as Scott and I lay on our bed, Scott exclaimed “Oh oh!  Look at that!”  I followed his gaze to the vent.  “Oh C%$#!” I had to add.  In the ceiling of our trailer are three vents that we can open with a little crank to let air in, or smoke & heat out.  The one in the bathroom has a little fan to assist.  Well, anyhow, the vent cover in the bedroom had all but disintegrated, there were so many holes in it.  April and May were hard months here in Council Bluffs and Omaha.  Lots of hail storms!  The hail had taken out the vent covers of all three vents!  But the one over the vent was far worse than the others.  I knew what we would have to do on our return home!

The next day I was out walking around the trailer and came across Scott standing and looking up at the wall of the trailer on the front drivers side.  There was a huge bulge.  That can’t be good.  Something ELSE to do on our return home!

Other than those two little events, though, the weekend was fun!  I even cooked dinner one night, a RARE treat for Scott… except my cooking is rarely a treat for anyone!  I had come across a recipe for Paella, and I must say, I done good!  Quite tasty!

Monday, Memorial Day, we got started relatively early… by 9 a.m.  The weather was predicted to be windy.  And boy, was it ever!  It’s a 6 to 6.5 hour drive from McGregor to Council Bluffs.  But not MOnday.  Monday, it took us over 9 hours to get home!  The wind meant we drove with BOTH hands on the wheel, knuckles white and locked tight.  My arms were rigid to the point I thought I’d been lifting weights by the time I got home!

But that wasn’t the worst of it!  The wind worked its way in to the camper through that bulge I mentioned earlier… and peeled the siding away from the camper.  It happened as we drove south on I35, head on in to the wind!  Fortunately, a stop in Ames for a ladder, duct tape, a hammer and a screw driver put things in order long enough to trudge home.  We normally can drive 65 when pulling the trailer, but Monday we were generally driving between 40 and 50!

And of course, I came home to a ton of work, so we haven’t had a chance to get the siding looked at.  But today, Scott and I went down to the trailer, climbed up on the roof to see about fixing those three vents.  To our chagrin, it turns out that EVERY protuberance on the roof of our trailer has damage!  In addition to the 3 vents I mentioned there are 4 other vents… one is the vent stack for the gray water tank (where water from the kitchen sink or the bathtub goes)  one for the black water tank (that’s where the toilet refuse is held) and two that provide ventilation to the area between the ceiling and the roof, an area bout 3 inches thick…. Sort of like an attic, I guess.  All destroyed.  There’s a cover over the air conditioner and it is damaged.  And lastly there is the dome over the bathtub, a skylight of sorts.  All the plastic was brittle… kind of the consistency of a cookie.  Just touching it all made it crumble even more.  The skylight was fine, no cracks… until I touched it!  We got most of it all repaired today. 

And, talking to the guy at Camping World, it turns out we can expect to do this about every 3 years for as long as we own our trailer… there’s really not a lot we can do to prevent it!

The worst news is, based on what Mr. Camping World Manager told us, we could easily be done with camping for the season, as it only take a day to do the siding repairs, but it could take up to 4 months to get the new siding from the manufacturer… and no, the warranty expired last year.

And that, dear friends, is the story of our camping trip.

There isn’t a lot of news here, other than the trip.  Tomorrow is my birthday!  Yay!  And this coming week, I FINALLY will be undergoing the testing necessary to determine if I have narcolepsy!  In an odd way I hope I do!  (Its something we can actually treat!)

See you all on down the road!

As some know, I enjoy tracking our family genealogy.  Not long ago, I was hunting for some family names online when I came across a website called www.findagrave.com.  This is a site that lists most cemeteries in the USA, and many of those buried in those cemeteries.  Anyone can post to this site.  One thing you can do is locate a cemetery and then investigate if anyone important is buried there. 

So, while searching for information on my Strom ancestry, I found a link to findagrave.com.   It was a link to the grave of my grandmother and grandfather Strom (Dad’s folks).  At Findagrave, when you find a direct relative you can request that the person who put the site up transfer it to you, so I did.  And, so, in due course I met a cousin I had never known before, Linda Pelican Berney, the granddaughter of my Great Aunt Viola Hanisch Paulsen.

This past weekend, Linda and I got together at her Beaver Lake summer cottage… er, home.  We went through family photos that I had.  We invited my cousin Mary Beth Strom Hawkins and my Uncle Lyle.  And, by the way, no, these folks don’t go by these long names.  I’m just trying to provide lineage info, here!  We had a blast.

Just to give a little more context:

My Dad’s mother is a Hanisch.  Grandma was one of 9 Hanisch children, descended from Oscar Gustaf Hanisch and Louisa Sophia Dieterich Hanisch.  In order of birth, these 9 Hanisch children were:

Gustaf Frederick Hanisch (Uncle Gus), Edward Carl Wilhelm Hanisch (Uncle Ed), Viola Hanisch Paulsen (Aunt Viola), Louis Everett Hanisch (Uncle Lou), Millie Hanisch Buss and Minnie Rose Hanisch Hankey– Twins (Aunt Millie and Aunt Minnie), Eda Hanisch Strom (Grandma Strom), Carl Hanisch (died aged 11), and Beata Hanisch Hibben (Aunt Beata)

Here are some interesting photos that we came across:

This delightful lady is none other than my great-grandmother Louisa Sophia Dieterichs Hanisch, taken in July 1942, 2 months prior to her passing.

This pair is my grandfather and grandmother Strom.  Elmer Theodore Strom (1886 – 1937) and Eda Hanisch Strom (1891 – 1967).  Grandpa Strom died of Addison’s Disease in 1937.  This disease was the result of having been gassed during WWI.

Here’s a delightful photo of my Dad and Uncle Lyle at 6 months!

Lyle, Grandma and Dad at 18 months.

That’s Sergeant Major Elmer Strom, shortly after the conclusion of WWI.

And that’s Private Louis Strom, during WWII.

 Uncle Lyle served, too, in the Merchant Marine.

And OH! How we would LOVE to know who THIS IS!

There are a great many more photos, many of which still need to be scanned and cataloged.

The week before last it was cold here in the Heartland.  I mean mind-numbing cold.  It was so cold, I began to have serious thoughts about packing Scott and I up, along with Dad & Gary, and moving to the Holy Land.  The Land of Milk and Honey.  Of Gold and Silver.  Of Gypsum.  Of New Mexico.  God’s country, it seems to me.  A place I can’t wait to move to again.

And then I learned that had we dropped everything and gone to New Mexico last week… we’d have been in for colder weather than we were having here!  I mean, come on!  Minus 13 in Alamogordo and in Hobbs?  Oh, my no.  That is just NOT going to work.

It turns out my patience in waiting one week has been paid off… Thursday and Friday I walked the warm sunny streets of Omaha without jacket, in dress shirt (no tie), and am sweating!  It’s gorgeous out there!  Whyever would I want to leave this magnificent city?  This land of Gold and Silver?  Of Milk and Honey?  This Holy Land?

Until the next time the temperature drops below zero, that is.