April 2025 Visit to Stockton and Mt Vernon

I didn't know if I wanted to travel anywhere more than an hour on Sunday, the day after the wedding and reception. The next two days would be long travel days. I'm not the road warrior I once was.

But thankfully, I was convinced to go to Stockton and Mt Vernon. In hindsight, it became the only opportunity in 2025 to do so. I had dreams that we would visit in August 2025 but those dreams never came true. Maybe next year.

Leaving from Great Bend gave us the opportunity to take a different highway, at least on the way up. We took 281 north to Russell - I hadn't been in downtown Russell for years. After stopping to pick up some postcards, we drove north on 281 to Osborne. I forgot how much beauty was on that drive - it had been at least 40 years since I last traveled that stretch. 

When we got to Osborne, we turned west on 24. I was thinking about Cawker City but thought the better of it - maybe next year.

We did drive past Alton - my mom was born there. Both sides of her family are buried near Alton but in separate cemeteries. One family on the east side and the other family on the west side. If you blink your eye, you'll probably miss seeing the entirety of Alton, Kansas.  But a lot of family history there.

I do like the brick main street of Stockton. Thankfully, so far, the brick has been retained as it is highway 24 through town. 

I read the Stockton newspaper - and by reading the past news sections, I discovered that I was awarded prizes on two occasions for the best costume: one at school and one at the VFW. My mom was creative on the sewing machine!

I wasn't sure how the roads would be west of Stockton with all of the rain. But no concern - it didn't rain west of Stockton the night before. We took old highway 24 and drove up and down hills. We drove past the old farm. What a wide valley that is. Nothing is the same as far as buildings and such but the Ash Creek valley remains the same.

And then we came to Mt Vernon to visit gravesites. I have so many relatives buried there - from both paternal branches of the family. It's like we can't visit them all. But we did visit mom and dad. Mom's gravesite still more dirt than grass despite 18 months of weather.

Paid our respects to other family members - grandparents, uncles, aunt. And a couple of great grandparents.

Well my sister surprised us with an invitation for dinner. So we rushed back to Great Bend after driving by an exceptionally low Webster Lake. Highway 18 to 183 to Interstate 70 back to 281. Webster - Zurich - Plainville - Hays - Russell - Great Bend. Felt like driving through my past and into long forgotten homes and memories.

We had a great supper with sister, brother-in-law, and the new bride! I had some delicious potato pancakes - reminded me of mom's cooking.

Peace and love.
Dwight

April 2025 Wedding in Kansas

We arrived two days before the wedding on Thursday. Everyone had made it to the short-term rental home for a Thursday night family dinner of pasta! Two by plane, one by train, and two by car!

The rental home had a lot of steps. One step to the bedrooms or one step up to the kitchen. Or three steps down from the kitchen to the dining room. Or 10 steep steps down from the dining room to more bedrooms, rec room and laundry.

But it did have a beautiful stained glass door.

On the way to Great Bend to find the house and to unpack, we found a country Sinclair gas station. We stopped for gas and a picture of Dino. Notice no asphalt pavement in the parking lot.

On Friday we helped our niece set up the reception venue where we would have dinner, dancing, photo booth, and seating on Saturday night after the wedding. We were glad to be involved in something and helping our niece out!

Friday night was the rehearsal dinner - I met people I had not seen in years and had a great meal. We took one of the options from Great Bend to the country church. We decided next time, the day of the wedding, to take the route my sister suggested! Because it rained overnight!

The church was beautiful! We arrived in time for family pictures. One of the pictures were with my sisters and me standing with the bride.

I have a lot of pictures I could share on this post, but I want to limit what I post within a public space.

I had been at a worship service at this church about 45 years ago while visiting my sister and her husband. It still has beautiful windows.

A picture of the audience during the wedding.

Congratulations Amy and John!

Then a horse-drawn carriage outside the church awaited the blessed newlyweds!

Then we all headed to the reception venue. We had fun, danced, visited with cousins and family and friends. Weddings are beautiful because family members are enjoying the great vibes from a wedding.

I tried to dance to Hot to Go lol. 

On the memory table was a picture of mom and dad 💓

A lot of people danced to the DJ!

 

The next day was Sunday. Our son and daughter-in-law left early to catch their flight back home.

We decided at the last minute to head to the cemetery, and then, we hurried back home to have dinner with my sister, brother-in-law, and newly married niece. That is all for the next blog post.

Love ya!

Random Collection of Pictures March 2025

Continuing this random picture month project so I can get to the month of April and a trip to Kansas to write about!

A lot more space in the home office with the junk reduced to a few totes!

A book I saw at the Grand Canyon NPS book store got purchased for the library. Beautiful photos and great information.

Caught the moon sneaking around low in the sky.

As seen from the Publix grocery store parking lot - train and mountain.

The campus pond looking really pretty!

Nashville view from the Tennessee Education Association parking lot.

The always beautiful Nickajack Lake on the Tennessee River.

Someone had a birthday in March - if you look really hard you can see his face.

Vivid facebook memory of a cloud inversion.

Another birthday in March. Happy Birthday Pops!

The sea of red grass around Castle Rock in Kansas.

A very popular Instagram post  - I wasn't expecting that many likes! 1984 me.

And now more pictures of me - lol

Random Collection of Pictures February 2025

I'm liking this new category! Sort of like a visual journal entry.  Well, I accomplished something big time! I cleaned out the junk storage / office space to create more space for the office and purchased shelving for an organized storage space.  Big difference!  So a few pictures are pictures I found scattered all over the junk storage part of the room.

I found an old whiteboard so I taped a bunch of random pictures that I found during the cleanup. This is only the bottom half of the board - the top half has a lot of cute family pictures.

One of our past doggies - Chewy. Very loving dog.

Dad tuning the mandolin. A little bit of Max Hunter history behind the mandolin.

I think this was 1998 Christmas vacation when we went to visit Smith Center and Thornburg. The last time I've been to either place. This is on the old school grounds across the street from the church.

And now to some other random pictures not from the cleanup!

Birger Sandzen painted a lot of pictures from his in-laws land in Graham County near Bogue.
"Creek at Moonrise", "Creek at Twilight", "Pasture Creek" were some of the painting titles inspired by Sandzen's view of Wild Horse Creek. I snipped this picture with the labels Wild Horse Creek and South Fork Solomon visible for context. I bought a print reproduction of one of his Wild Horse Creek paintings.

One of G's and I favorite desserts at one of our most visited restaurants - the blueberry apple cobbler at Logan's Roadhouse.

One of the many rejected pictures for my passport application. That's a whole other story filled with frustration, the better business bureau, and more. Maybe I tell it someday.

What I see each morning when I open my office door at work.

In a new hoodie from G - very comfortable cloth. And my mama's painting in the background.

I bought this at the bookstore located at the Grand Canyon National Park. I was not aware of the number of tribal nations that called the Canyon home.

Occasionally I check to see if Google Maps has updated the view of the old farmstead. It was updated. Look at all of those trails behind where the old barn stood.

I don't know what's going on in Rooks and Smith but wow a lot of mapped earthquakes in both counties from the Kansas Geological Association.

I found this beautiful picture of Standing Stone State Park located north of Cookeville, TN.

February had a lot of sky watching events. One was the parade of planets where 7 planets were visible in the night sky (top picture). Venus remained visible for many days in February (bottom picture).

I keep my ChattState pull over long sleeve in my office for cold days when just wearing short-sleeved polos.

Occasionally I get a feed of railroad or train enthusiasts on Facebook. On Facebook, the picture was angled where it looked like the train was curving around this house. I hunted it down on the Internet. The tracks are like right at the back door!  This is in Tell City, Indiana. 

I have several bookmarked emails about Trail City, an encampment right on the Kansas - Colorado line. Kansas at the time imposed a strict regulation about cattle being driven across Kansas land so a guy got smart and trailed the cattle in Colorado alongside the state line. Trail City emerged as a railroad stopping place consisting mostly of dugouts and a few buildings. It was said that there were more brothels and saloons than places of business in Trail City. The nearest Kansas town is Coolidge, which has a Trail City bed and breakfast. Trail City itself only lasted a couple of years and almost all signs of its existence are gone.

Random Collection of Pictures January 2025

I often capture pictures on my phone that I'm interested in or have a memory attached to them. But they stay on my phone. Eating up cloud storage and lost in the myriad of pictures. I finally realized - duh, I have a blog I can upload a few pictures to and use the captions to explain the significance. So I hope to continue this series of Random Collection of Pictures for the months where there are enough to upload.

Fort Hays during the winter. The last time I went inside the  buildings was with David during 2015 visit.

I served as the webmaster for the Geoscience Information Society in 2024.

I find this map snippet interesting - Mt Sunflower highest point in Kansas, Black Mesa highest point in Oklahoma (both over 4,000 feet) and then scrolling westward towards Raton Pass 3000 ft higher than Black Mesa.

One of those weird things: a State Highway in Kansas turns into a dirt road at the Colorado border and Colorado posted a road closed sign when wet.

The short Kansas State Highway 191 that connects US 281 to the center of the 48 states. I know that county very well.

Pretty cool chart of types of wetlands -- what's a fen or what's a swamp

I came across this picture of me when I was searching staff pictures for the Dean's retirement party. Probably 2010.

I caught this picture of brewing storm.

A very interesting picture from a restaurant table mat. You can see how the Tennessee River carved its way through what is now Signal and Elder mountains. And the depth between the Plateau and Dunlap. You can see Chattanooga listed at the 5:00 position. 

Look at that geology map: the eastern part of the state with several changes of color hues. I mean there are part of the Ozarks, part of the Osage Cuestas, the Flint Hills, and the very abnormal Chautauqua Hills dominated by thick cedars and sandstone. And then about 1/3 of the way heading west - the colors become more similar east to west than the eastern part of north to south. The Kansas River (the Kaw) is the only river in the Great Plains that does not have a starting stream in the Rockies, instead the starting stream is in the eastern plains of Colorado. Also for more interesting stuff -- there's an old rift hidden under the Eastern part of Kansas that is connected to the rift that created the Great Lakes.