Tennessee backroads

I decided to stop and take some pictures of the back road on the way to my Dad's house. It takes me 15 minutes from their house to the hotel.

 The tunnels of trees make everything feel very Lord of the Rings.

 I keep waiting for the Shire to be around the next corner.

 The climb up the mountain is interesting, tight turns, road narrowing then converting to gravel. the bridges that only allow one car to squeak over it, the big boulders that force the roads to curve tightly around them.  neighbors who back out without looking, the guys who run a stop sign, because the road is not very travelled.

This afternoon, we drove over the the nearest large town to do a little shopping.  My Dad is very patient, then he spotted fabric with a western theme.  I bought 2 panels (which actually gave me 4 panels and the coordinating cowboy fabric for pillow for their couch. My Dad picked the coordinating fabric from 3 fabrics I picked off the shelf. 

The third fabric I bought is fall leaves with chestnuts.

My Step-Mom asked me to fix a teddy bear quilt for one of the nephews.  He is so excited that I am going to fix his quilt.  The top is well worn, but the real problem is that they didn't actually quilt the batting.  There is a perfect spot to embroider his name and birthdate before I put the quilt back together.

 My Step-Sister is preggo and my Step-Mom would like me to make a new Teddy bear quilt for the new baby.

Thursday Morning

The past few days have been going by so fast, well except Monday.  Monday was hang out at the hotel then at the airport until my flight to Nashville. I should have stayed at the downtown hotel and gone back to the Family History Library.  Even though I didn't have my binder I could have work something. I did poke around on Ancestry.com.
Tuesday was spent visiting with family around the kitchen table.  After a while, we were trying to decide about dinner and decided to go to Golden Corral.  It was fun.  My dad goes silent and his head down  when you put a plate in front of him.  His whole attention is on his plate. He's always done this, so focused on eating. After dinner we hung out gabbing on the porch swing.

Weds was so fun.  I stay at the local Super 8 (the only hotel in Town). So we can use the pool. Yesterday, All the local grand kids, my step-sisters and my folks played in the pool.  My dad and step-mom played hard and fierce with the boys. The chlorine was really high even sitting on the pool deck it was burning your eyes. You could not open your eyes in the water. We often took the boys to the bathroom and flushed their eyes with water.  Debbie said it was the best birthday ever. My step-mom is a wonderful lady.

I got back to the hotel around 11 pm again. I brushed my teeth and crashed.

Minnesota Nice or Mom Syndrome Day 5 SLC

Today started out pretty much on target with the plan.  Get up eat breakfast, meet June to walk over to watch the Broadcast of "The Spoken Word" a weekly broadcast of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The choir was awesome.

 As we walked out of the Convention Center and was greeted by Sister Missionaries who announced in their different languages that they are available to show us around Temple Square and share about the Church.

June and I walked to the Joseph Smith Building and attended church. The chapel was beautiful.

Afterward I changed into jeans and drove to the airport.  The gate got changed after I had been sitting there reading for awhile. At the new gate, the flight was delayed. Turned out that the incoming flight was delayed due to mechanical issues. Delta replaced the plane with a smaller plane, so then our flight was overbooked. They called for volunteers to give up their seats and got a few volunteers, very slowly.  As they were getting ready for boarding, I got called up because they need to give me a new seat assignment.

The Mom Syndrome
The young girl behind me didn't get a seat assignment. She looked like she was gonna cry because she wouldn't have a ride home from Nashville if she wasn't on this flight.

The Mom in me wanted to take care of her.  The counter people were gonna try anything to get her to Nashville, but everything even routing her through Seattle to Atlanta to Nashville was leaving her without a ride home.  Delta needs more flights into Nashville, there is only one per day direct from Salt Lake City to Nashville.  My plans are flexible enough, so I stepped up and gave up my seat. 

Delta gave me a $400 voucher for a future flight, a hotel and meal vouchers. They upgraded me on tomorrow's flight.  The girls behind the counter even gave me a toothbrush/overnight kit for tonight, because my luggage was on the plane already.  Waiting for the shuttle to the hotel, I called my hotel, rental car and my folks. Then I called the Hubby.   He just laughed, because we had been talking on the phone when they called the first time for volunteers, I think he knew I was going to end up giving up my seat. 

The young girl kept saying she didn't know how to thank me.  I think she did a pretty good job.  Hopefully she will pay it forward someday.

Day 4 Salt Lake City

The last of the conference went really well.  I attended all three sessions, then we had lunch with a talk afterwards.

Session Two was about resources for Eastern European research on Ancestry.com .  I did something funny. The speaker was on slide 2, when I asked him to stop and chnage the color of his text to something other than Ancestry yellow/green.  Everyone else in the class agreed it was too hard to read.  I like to sit in the back of the room and could not read the slides.  I'm just getting old.  He laughed and quickly took our tips on how to change the color and we were off and running again.  I do learn something in each class, even it isn't about my area.

After lunch we wandered back to the Family History Library.  I feel like a goob taking pictures of the library, so I didn't.  I used all but 15 cents on my $5 copy card. You swipe the card to activate the copier and the printer function on the copiers. About 5 o'clock my tummy started to growl, so I headed back to the room to drop of my stuff and to talk to the Hubby. 

Two Salt Lake City blocks down was an Olive Garden. I had Shrimp Ravioli. The table across from had four small kids under 6. The youngest was not a happy camper and was screaming and whining.  He had to much stimulation and needed a nap bad.  I wanted to give the Mom my bread sticks to feed him, but before I could get up the waiter thought the same thing.  But the bread and salad was not what he wanted.  Mom had to take him out of the dining room for a walk.

Day 3 Salt Lake City

Good day for doing genealogy.  Every day is a good day for genealogy.  This morning's conference sessions were about Prussia  and Polish research.  I attended the first session on Using the EWZ micofilms, the EWZ was the German immigrant tracking system for moving the ethnic Germans back to the father land in front of the german army in WWII. The amount of detail including photos from 1939-1946 is amazing.  The genealogy that was included is great for us, but had an ugly cast to it. If you were Jewish or Polish, even if your were german jewish you were not transferred. The German government only wanted Pure Germans.
Because I don't have any Polish and Prussian ancestry, I went to the Family History Library at 10:00. I had a list of a few books on Croatian Immigration to America I wanted to look at.  I made a few copies of some pages from each. Then I went back down to the International Floor.  I had my one-on-one consultation, this afternoon.  Dr Edlund, a professor at BYU in Eastern Eurpean genealogy helped me narrow down one of my villages, the county and the district.  Then we found the Evangelical Lutheran church.  It sounds so easy, but it took us an hour.  The first village is so small it wasn't in the gazetteer for Hungary. My village used to be in Hungary in 1890's.

Then I pulled my first microfilm from the drawer and began the very slow process of looking for my surnames. Guess What??  I found one, while I'm not sure if this is my guy.  This tells me that I found the right film.

Look how pretty the surname is. The handwritting is lovely.  I can't figure out what it says yet, but I will soon.

About 4:30, my stomach was protesting that it was hungry. I rode the Trax again to Appleby's for an early dinner and then past Temple Square on the way back. I walked back and strolled through Deseret Books. I was looking for T-shirts for the kids, but they didn't have any t-shirts.  But check out the cool bronze statue.

   

Day 2 Salt Lake City

Today was day one of the FEEFHS conference. Federation of Eastern European Family History Societies is a small conference.  The conference is setup with six break out sessions in the morning and then after lunch we meeting with a consultant for a one-on-one session in our area of research in the Family History Center Library.  A group of us walked five blocks to The Gateway mall for lunch. I hitched a free ride back to the hotel via the trax, a light rail train. Check out the bronze pidgeons on the roof of the station across the street from the hotel.

After spending  the afternoon in the Family History Library. I walked to dinner and then met one of my classmates so we could go to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir practice at the Convention Center. It was awesome to sit in the conference center,

 I really enjoyed watching the conductor as he worked with the different sections of the songs.

The organist and the giant pipe organ were amazing.  I'm going back for a performance on Sunday morning, they perform a show called The Spoken Word at 9:30 am. I don't fly out until 5 pm on Sunday.

Day 1 Salt Lake

My flight was very early, this morning which is nice, but tiring. I got to Minneapolis, then was on a very full flight to Salt Lake City. I was a bit annoyed at the car rental line, but got over it when the girl upgraded me, because it was all they had.  I'm driving a Dodge Dakota pickup, very nice, basic little truck with four doors.  My son's would not fit in the back, but the grandkids might.  This would actually be a great truck for a teenager or 20 somethings like my boys.
The flight arrived at 10:45 am, so I couldn't check in at the hotel, so I went shopping.  First stop Lane Bryant, for jeans. The Lane Bryant closet to the airport was in this very nice outdoor mall. I took pictures of kids playing in the water fountain in the middle of this mall.  I missed the singing and dancing, that happens every 30 minutes.

The music ended and alot of the parents grabbed their kids and disappeared. I wanted to get out of the parking garage, before 1 hour was up, so I didn't have to pay for parking.  The mall is called The Gateway. Turns out to be 5 Salt Lake City blocks from my hotel.  7 Salt Lake City Blocks equal 1 mile, while 10 regular city blocks are a mile.

This is the view from my room at the Salt Lake Plaza. that is the Capital building in the background.

 The second picture is of the back of the Family History Library and the dome behind that is the Mormon Tabernacle where the Choir sings every day at 10 am. I might have to play hookey one morning and go to see them.

I also found three sewing stores and a grocery store before I headed to the hotel. I only bought 2 fat quarters and a pattern.  A quick quiet dinner in the restaurant next door and now it's check my email and post time.  I got up at 3 am Central Time and it's now 15 hours later, I might turn out the lights soon.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

I'm leaving on a Jet plane. I'm packed and ready to head out to a Genealogy Conference in Salt Lake City.  For being so into Genealogy This is my first ever trip to Salt Lake City.  Cruising through the airport does not count.

fabulous 4th

I hope everybody had a fabulous 4th of July.  I did, even though it started earlier than I wanted.  The Hubby took a few days off so we were sleeping in when the phone rang at 6 am. 

This dude called us from Iraq,  He's coming back to the states the first week of August.  This one is my non-communicator, he doesn't write and he doesn't always call. 

Saturday the Hubby and I drove over to Silver Bay MN along the North shore of Lake Superior to visit a high school teacher and family friends, who moved to Minnesota.  It was a nice drive in the new truck. We spent the afternoon and evening with them. About 9 pm, we headed to the hotel then had breakfast with the friends before meandering back home on Sunday.

4th July was like an extra Saturday, we got up after our phone call. Went to breakfast, stopped by some friends to invite them to dinner.  A quick run through the store for steaks. A nice easy holiday meal; of steaks salad, potato salad, coleslaw and rolls. Visiting with family and friends is a perfect weekend.

Today was slow paced. I ran some errands, did a few house chores, then packed for tomorrow. I am leaving on a jet plane.