The Road Trip

Ever since I went off to college, "going home" meant getting on a plane.  There was one exception--my husband and I drove to Nebraska once, before our son was born.  So that was a dozen years ago.

This year, we had the time to do it, and not so much money for plane tickets, so we made the trek via car.

I was a little nervous about it; we're not roadtrippers, and I was unsure if we could keep ourselves from going stir crazy in the car.  But it went swimmingly!

Here was our itinerary:
June 30:  Drive to Racine, WI
July 1:  Tour Wingspread, then drive to Dubuque, IA across southern Wisconsin.  Visit the MS River Aquarium.  Drive to Cedar Rapids, IA, to visit the art museum there.  Then to Des Moines, IA
July 2:  Go to the UP Railroad Museum in Council Bluffs, IA, then home to Kearney
July 3:  Family reunion at Dad's.  About 40 people for food, swimming, fireworks, and my Dad's traditional toast to the descendents of Julius Wlaschin.
July 4:  Kicking around Kearney, hanging out with Dad
July 5:  Drive to Ash Hollow, Chimney Rock, and Agate Fossil Beds in NW Nebraska with my sister's family.  Make it to Hot Springs, SD and swim at Evan's Plunge.
July 6:  Drive through Custer State Park, take Needles Highway.  Visit Crazy Horse.  Stay in Deadwood, SD
July 7:  Drive to Devil's Tower in Wyoming.  Hike in Spearfish Canyon.  Stay in Deadwood a second night.
July 8th:  Tour Mt Moriah Cemetery, drive to Mt Rushmore, do the Tram/slide in Keystone.  Drive to Rapid City.
July 9th:  Minuteman Missile site, Badlands, then home to NE
July 10:  Hang at Dad's, dinner at Karen's (Dad's marvelous girlfriend), Drive to Omaha.
July 11:  Drive to Chicago
July 12:  Museum of Science & Industry, & Tour of the Robie House.  Then home to Ann Arbor.
July 13:  Vacation is over?!  Really?

Genealogy ahoy!

This post should really be about our vacation, but I am at Dad's so I don't have photos ready yet.  I'd really like to add a snapshot or two from the trip when I blather about that.

Instead, I'll post a photo of people I do not know.

One of the nice things about being home is having the opportunity to pick my Dad's brain (and go through his impressive genealogy files).   There's an entire clan of people who are my relatives, but they do not feel like my relatives.  I don't have memories of going to their houses, or seeing them at reunion picnics, or hearing my aunts and uncles tell stories about them.  They are a side of the family that was estranged from the my Dad's mom, for reasons that are all too stupid today but probably felt compelling at the time (issues of class and religion and the like).

I am learning more about them, through Dad, who has spent the last decade finding out about and reconnecting with them.  But they don't feel like my relatives.  Not yet, anyway.  With enough stories I hope that might change.

I am not even sure how many steps removed these folks are--or who their modern-day descendants are.  They're not even in my tree yet.  But here they are, awaiting my Dad's return from Falls City so he can tell me who they are.