My trip to Kansas: Things I did and saw

I am currently on an almost 2 week-long trip to Mcpherson Kansas to see my grandpa Tim Wesselowski and to do some genealogical research. Thus far it has been an extremely successful and eventful trip, one that has provided the answer to a 100-year-old mystery (although that part of the trip warrants its own post). In this post I will simply write about the things I saw, what I did, and the best parts of the trip.

I'll start off by listing off the genealogy related things I did, although I won't go into detail here, the post would be far too long!

1. Scanned in over 500 (as of today) family photos in my grandpa's possession
2. Recorded about 3 hours of an interview (done over several sessions) with my Grandpa Tim about his childhood, his parents, and his grandparents.
3. Visited the Couch Cemetery and the Jewell City Cemetery and took pictures of the graves and visited with deceased relatives.
4. Visited the Court House in Mankato and found a lot of records on the family.

You can look forward to more detailed descriptions of all those things in future posts- this one will be about my sightseeing excursions and miscellaneous activities I partook in.

I'll start with today and go backward:

Today my mom, my grandpa Tim, and I journeyed to the border of Kansas and Nebraska, finding ourselves in the rolling hills and expansive plains that constitute the rural county of Jewell. The trip was specifically planned to coincide with the solar eclipse. We imagined watching the sky turn an inky black, the moon blotting out the sun so, for a fleeting couple of minutes, a million stars could paint the sky deep hues of blue and purple.

Unfortunately, that did not happen. We went up to Couch Cemetery to watch and the sky got slightly dim at best. The clouds that decided to roll in about 3 minutes before 1:01 (the time the eclipse was supposed to peak) also did a pretty great job of making it impossible to see anything interesting. It was still pretty darn cool though and the dim lighting made for perfect picture taking weather. Here are some snapshots from the evening.

Couch Cemetery Mid Eclipse

Me, looking through my phone at the sun (All the stores were out of eclipse glasses)

Me in Couch Cemetery after the cloud covered the eclipse

Still waiting for the cloud to move out of the way

While visiting Couch cemetery was the most anticipated thing I did today, it was not the only thing. Before going to Couch we payed a trip to the Jewell City Cemetery. Although most my Kansas relatives are buried in Couch, there is still a fair amount in Jewell City. After visiting couch I checked out some records at the Court House in Mankato. I'll write more about these parts of the trip in a future post.

Yesterday wasn't exactly uneventful either. We rode over to Abilene, Kansas and ate an All-you-can-eat lunch at the Brookville Hotel. Grandpa was pretty impressed with their fried chicken cooked in lard, although I personally thought the best part was the biscuits. There was also Cole Slaw, Corn, Mashed Potatoes, Cottage cheese, and more. And, of course, Ice Cream for desert.

Me and my grandpa outside the Brookville Hotel, post meal

Next we headed over to historic Abilene, full of old town Jails, Restaurants, Houses, and a Merry go Round!

Me by the Historic Abilene Marker sign

By the old-town post office

The old-town jail

We finished the day with a visit to Dwight D. Eisenhower's boyhood home. We didn't take pictures inside but this was the outside:

Me Outside Dwight D. Eisenhowers Childhood Home

Now flashback to the 19th, when I went to see the Buffalo at the Maxwell Wildlife Refuge. It was not my first time going there; I have a vague memory from when I was very young of a herd of Buffalo who decided to take a break in front of our van. The dirt path and grassy hills were exactly as I remembered.

The Buffalo

Me with the Buffalo

Bonus pic of Me, my twin sister Nicole, and my Grandpa in the viewing tower the first time I went to Maxwell.

And now I will travel back in time once more to our trip to Lindsborg. Lindsborg is a beautiful little Swedish town in Kansas. It is the only location in Kansas where the Van Wert family maintained a presence. In fact, three generations of my Swedish-Lutheran Van Wert family attended Bethany College- My mom, my grandma, and my great grandma. While I will not be continuing this trend it's still pretty cool that so many of the family decided to attend higher education at the same location. Of course I had to go and pay a visit to the college, for my moms sake. Here is a picture of me in the 'pit' (it was registration day so the campus was pretty packed!)

Me in the main meeting place at Bethany College

We had a lunch planned at the Ole Stuga so we started to make our way over. Back when my mom was in college she worked at the Ole Stuga so of course she wanted to eat there, for ol' times sake. We met up with one of my mom's old Professors and had our sandwiches.

Eating Lunch at the Ole Stuga

We had some time before we had to get back to grandpa so we walked around town. here are some of the things we saw:

Me with my mom In a toy store

St Lucia Statue by the road

Swedish Handicraft Shop

My mom in an Art Gallery and Cafe

The Art Gallery and Cafe

After that I got a Lavender Soda (I liked it, mom thought it tasted like soap), a vanilla ice cream with lingonberry sauce, and headed home.