Riverbend Journal

  No deep dive with this post into what I am seeing in these post card pictures though I have no doubt I could spend hours doing so. I just selected these as being interesting street scenes with incredible detail and a delight for my eyes to look out when enlarged. Hopefully you might enjoy them too.

  I won't bore you with all the details but thought I would show you a few pictures from our recent Spring Break trip. On the drive out to Colorado Springs, we stopped in Victoria, Kansas to stretch our legs and to walk through the "Cathedral of the Plains" known formally as the Basilica of St. Fidelis. I always enjoy the opportunity to look at fantastic architecture while getting blood circulation in my lower extremities flowing again. Before stopping for the night, we visited perhaps the biggest Van Gogh painting and easel in the world in a small part in Goodland, Kansas. You can see my car parked behind it to the left.  Due to the heavy winds I wrote about previously and the poor driving conditions, we didn't do much on Sunday after we checked into our AirBnB other than do so shopping for breakfast making supplies. The following day we of course drove down to Florence to visit the salvage shop and pick up the Clara Kuck related items. Little did we know Florence is...

  While driving out to Colorado Springs was a lot of driving, 12 hours each way, it wasn't dull and boring. I had my phone packed full of podcasts so I could listen to them but mother nature also provided some entertainment as you will see in the above clips I took from the factory dashcam that came on my newest vehicle.  We purposely left late and drove only about 9 hours the first day and I wish now we had driven more. The second day we only had 3 hours left to drive on paper but it probably took closer to 5 when all was said and done due to mother nature. In the middle of the night I woke up and could feel my motel bed shaking up on the fourth floor of the motel. I thought it might be my wife until I got up to use the bathroom and saw the water in the toilet bowl sloshing back and forth. Then I knew it was the wind and it must be howling. Several hours later when we exited the motel, I knew for certain it was the wind because I had to use most of my strength to open up the ...

Although this shows the results of day three of our spring break trip to Colorado Springs, I knew most of my usual readers were probably most interested in this particular day. I was able to find the salvage shop and met Erin the owner soon after she opened for the day. She had prepped for my arrival as well and had an empty table in the back of her shop where she brought all the boxes of things she had sorted out for me and allowed me to sort though those things to see what I might like to keep. It was a lot of stuff to sort though and in the hour the four of us (my wife and kids were with me), we still barely skimmed through most of it. I decided the safest option was to just take everything and made that offer to Erin. She had done her homework too though and evidently there were a couple of first editions books in a box of books that had hand written inscriptions on the inside covers that were likely worth some money. We didn't discuss value but I knew she was in the business o...

  I started this post in early February when I screen grabbed the above shot off of Google Street View knowing that sometime in March, I would likely be there in person when I got word. My plan then had always been a sprint to just drive there, retrieve the other boxes and albums of the Kuck family (and descendants) and drive right back. But with spring break a couple weeks away (as I put the finishing touches on this post) and no real destination in mind, the thought of perhaps combining the two and making for a more leisurely drive came to mind. I wrote the store owner, definitely not pressuring them to be done sorting by then, and telling them that if this timing worked out to let me know. They wrote back saying it would be perfect and so the planning began. As you read this, later this morning I will be at the shop pictured above, located in Florence Colorado, and hopefully retrieving the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in genealogical research. Of particular interest to ...