Dreams, Moments, Travels
As we are waiting for our flight home, blue sky finally appears. Unfortunately, our plane doesn’t. And when it does, it has a broken part. Our flight, originally scheduled to take off at 6 PM, finally departs at around 11:00 p.m. EST, getting me home at about 3:00 a.m. AZ time.
View from my hotel room on the 6th floor. I’m actually enjoying the gray sky, rain, and greenery.
After a busy first half of the day, our intrepid team enters a flight to the East Coast. James took this photo for me with my camera since he had the window seat.
This Google Earth map detail from Buffalo, New York is of the area where my uncle Woody grew up. Next week I will travel to Santa Barbara to visit my aunt and uncle on their 60th anniversary. I’ll bring my computer to show them the view from space as we zoom down onto the locations where they were married, where my uncle was hit by a train as a little boy, where they lived. I’ll show them Omaha Beach where my uncle landed during World War II before marching off to fight in the Battle of the Bulge making his way to and across the Siegfried Line. As my uncle has never seen this technology at work; I think he will be mighty surprised at what we are doing these days with computers.
During our first cross-country joy ride, we stopped at Fort Niagara in upstate New York on November 6, 2000, following our visit to Niagara Falls earlier on that beautiful Fall day. For weeks, we meandered on small roads, ending up in Bar Harbor, Maine, before turning southwest to amble back home. I hope you enjoy some old photos over the next week, as circumstances have prevented me from capturing a photo of the day.
Woody and my aunt Ann are joined by Woody’s father, Isaac, in this photo taken on my aunt and uncle’s wedding day back on August 3rd, 1946. Woody survived being hit by a train when he was 12, survived landing on Omaha beach during the Normandy invasion during World War II, and marched to the Battle of the Bulge, paving the way for him to survive 59 years of marriage.
Update: In 2023 I ran this photo through Photoshops restoration and colorization filter.
The two guys on the left are the Famous Kurchoff Brothers – Rudy and Herman. Herman is in the middle; the guy on the right is unknown. The brothers were famous for their circus and sideshow act, where they were the first daredevils in America to speed on motorcycles at death-defying angles inside a round steel cage. Herman is my maternal great-grandfather. Thanks again to Photoshop and Neat Image for repairing this old photo.