Ohio Trip to See Bob's Family and for His 45th High School Reunion

In September Bob wanted to make a two week trip to Ohio to visit relatives, go to nostalgic places, visit childhood friends, and attend his 45th high school reunion. It was quite a successful trip.

First of all Bob wanted to go to Cedar Point which is an amusement park in Sandusky which has been rated number 1 in the world for the 11th year in a row. I can understand why because they had all kinds of killer roller coasters and a lot of them. Bob and I aren't really riders, but we did enjoy a few of them and accidentally rode a roller coaster that was a mistake for us (just a mild one.) They still had a couple of shows that we enjoyed, but many of the shows were over for the season. This was a nostalgic visit for Bob because he and his family visited the park many times. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera to the park so no pictures. If you're interested go to their website: cedarpoint.com

We enjoyed several visits with his Aunt Ruth (Bob's mother's sister) who lives in Sandusky. The first day we drove to Lakeside and Marblehead which are tourist communities along Lake Erie. Luckily for us, since it was the off season, it wasn't so crowded and going there was not a major problem. We had lunch at a neat restaurant on Lake Erie and enjoyed the view while we ate. We could even see the nearby nuclear plant.

This is a lighthouse at Marblehead which is on Lake Erie.
The restaurant where we ate.

Skidoos in the foreground of where we ate, and if you look closely you can see the nuclear plant in the background.

On another trip with Aunt Ruth we visited Bucyrus to drive by familiar places and to visit the cemetary. We also discovered Carle's where we enjoyed meals there two different days. MMMmmm good!

Carle's restaurant area is in the back of this picture.
Excellent meat market at Carle's.



Another day we drove to Bucyrus and Nevada area where we enjoyed another meal at Carle's and visited Coon's Candy Store. Yes, we did buy candy. If you'd like go to their website:

coonscandy.com

We also searched for a cemetary that Aunt Ruth was looking for. We didn't find it, but we did find some relatives who invited us to a Sand (Bob's mother's side) Family Reunion the next day. We (Bob and I) did attend the reunion and made some more connections with some new found relatives. Afterwards we visited Aunt Ruth and Bob wrote down some of the family recipes from the recipe ledger. Maybe we'll do some cooking.




A couple of other days, Bob and I drove to Bucyrus and visited some of the Charleston relatives. We had two really nice visits with Bob's cousin, Barb, and her husband, Marlin, and their son, Mike, and his wife, Joyce. We visited at their house one evening. Then we joined them at Good Hope Lutheran Church where Bob's family attended when they lived there. We had another enjoyable visit at lunch. We also visited briefly with two other cousins on the Charleston side of the family.

Barb and Marlin

Mike and Joyce

Good Hope Lutheran Church


As I said before we did attend a Sand family reunion to make some connections with more long lost relatives. What a serendipity event. Aunt Ruth couldn't attend because she was attending the birthday party for a grandchild. Here are some relatives.Some long lost relatives on Bob's mother's side of the family. The one in pink, second from the right. was named Lucille so we had a nice visit. For more information talk to Bob. OK?
This isLarry (Buck) Sand with his wife and son. He's the one that we made contact with and found out about the reunion.

One of the main reasons we traveled to Ohio was for Bob's 45th high school reunion. They met at their old high school in the afternoon and toured the remodeled school which is now their elementary school. They did a nice job of combining old with the new. Bob met up with some of his high school friends then.

After the afternoon gathering Bob wanted to drive to see an old buddy of his that did not plan to attend the reunion. Off we went. We had a very nice visit with his shooting buddy from high school, Dan Beattie. Here they are.
That night was the banquet and main event for the reunion. Bob visited with many of his friends. Here are some of them.

One day we did take a tourist trip to Kelly's Island to do some bicycle riding. We took a 20 minute ferry ride to get there. It was a pretty cool and windy day so it was a little rough out on the water, but being outside and it only being a short ride made it an OK ride. Then we rode our bikes around the island and saw some interesting and some pretty sights of Lake Erie. Here are some pictures.

We also visited Thomas Edison's birthplace in Milan, OH. He was amazing. And I know that his labs, etc. and a lot of his work was done in New Jersey by where Nancy and Eric live. NOw we'll have to go visit there.

Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend started for us by deciding to go down to Des Moines to join the volunteer efforts of Meals From the Heartland which packages and sends meals mostly to third world countries where many people die from hunger related causes. Some food is also sent to Iowa and another state here in the US. We did this last year, and we thought it an excellent cause and something we could do to help. It is done assembly style. One person put in a vitamin tablet in a pouch attached to the bag in which the food was inserted. In the bag went one cup of a soy product, a tablespoon of dried veggies, and a cup of rice. The bag was weighed, and if there wasn't enough they added more rice, and if there was too much they took out some rice. Then the bag was hot sealed and put into a box. Each box held 36 bags of food. It was taped up and sent to the area for storage until it is taken to its destination. We packaged 15 boxes, and since each bag feeds 6 people, we helped feed 3,240 people. For the weekend, it was reported that the efforts of Meals From the Heartland will help to feed over 4 million people. They received extra monetary donations to buy more food so they were able to exceed their goal for this year. This is an annual event, and hopefully we can do even better next year. I think it's a great effort.




On Friday, Bob and I drove down to Boone to visit my good friend, Pat, who joined us to package meals on Sat. She hosted us while we were in the area. She was a very gracious host. It's always fun to visit friends.

On Sat., after doing the Meals from the Heartland, we met Bob's daughter, Cari, and her husband, Dave, at Famous Daves where we enjoyed excellent food, great company, and very interesting conversation. We always enjoy our visits with Cari and Dave.

Before returning to Pat's, we stopped in at Marilyn's to return some things she left when she visited in Aug. We also had a very nice visit with her.

Next day, on Sunday, Pat's son, Wayne, and his family invited us to go boating at Saylorville. We were very excited to go. Unfortunately the boat battery was not working. Wayne went to buy a new battery, but it was the wrong size and didn't fit the boat's area for it, so it ended up that we didn't really get to go boating. Instead we drove back to Boone and had a nice afternoon picnic and fun time at their house. It's not what you do, but being with friends and family that really counts.

Here we are waiting.

See the water?


Waiting.

No boating. OK. Then trampoline fun.

Picnic in the back yard.

Kiana playing a few pieces for us. She really likes jazz.

For Monday, we were planning to go back down to Des Moines and volunteer for Meals From the Heartland, but I got really sick Sunday night, and it lasted through all day Monday. So I pretty much slept all day, some at Pat's house, some in the car on the way home, and at home. I'm feeling better today. I hate being sick. Don't you?

While Bob was trying to entertain himself in Boone while I was sick, he went to eat at Hy Vee. While there, he ran into two former students who were there for the car races. They were Tyler Welander and a Mr. Carlson, from Georgia. They were there to watch Tyler's brother race. They had a nice visit. It is a small world.