Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Visiting Family

My sister now has three kids, which is three more than either of her older brothers. But I'm glad that Lila was born in at the end of summer, because it gave my whole family the perfect excuse to rendezvous in Dallas. This was our family's second trip to Dallas, and my fifth, but we found plenty of things to do. Here were some highlights:

The baseball game the first night was really fun (except my niece got sick). But hey, I won two free tacos to Taco Bueno. Sorry there are no pictures of us this time, only the kids.

Monday, September 01, 2008

Fort Scott

For Labor Day, JoLee and I traveled an hour south along the Kansas border to a small town called Fort Scott. The town was named after the original fort established there in 1842 back before Kansas was a state and this was the wild west. The military used the fort during the Mexican-American War, the Bleeding Kansas years, and the Civil War.

One of the great things about Fort Scott is that they let you roam and visit the buildings without distraction.

This is the hospital that also doubled as the visitors center.

Here JoLee is making bread in the enormous oven.



I don't know if this hole was an original part of the closet door, but JoLee wouldn't have allowed herself to be locked in if hadn't been there.

After visiting the fort we went to a civil war battle field along Mine Creek a few minutes away. The battle lasted one hour during which 600 soldiers were killed or wounded. The Union forces, while grossly outnumbered, soundly defeated the Confederates.



JoLee and I went on a little stroll through the battlefield which is now covered in tall grass. After walking for a few minutes, I stood up on a sign to see where the heck we were headed. That's when JoLee snapped this photo.

The sunflowers haven't been as plentiful during this summer as in years past, but we found plenty around Fort Scott.



Fort Scott also houses a national cemetery, which I thought looked very similar to Arlington in Virginia.

On our way out of town we had to stop and take a picture of this house that wants to be a 50's diner. The owners even put up a few palm trees to make it look like it belongs in California. What you don't see here are the victorian style homes next door.