Kansas Road Trip, Day 1

 OFD suggested a weekend in Kansas City to enjoy southern BBQ and watch the MN Twins and KC Royals baseball game. That was the excuse Hubby needed to geocache in Kansas.

There are 21 white counties on the map. Twenty-one counties without a geocache find. So, road trip to KS to geocache before Saturday's game. The plan was to geocache from north to south in the westernmost counties.

squirrel sighting!

When we road trip geocache, we look for 2 easy-to-find, recently found caches and move on, as we have miles to cover. This was at a welcome center in Council Grove.

colorful wall mural near the welcome center

interesting cloud and cloud build-up that I began watching

This cache was not on Hubby's list, but I thought we needed to add it to the list. It was right along the planned route and was recently found.

easy find and SO worth the stop, just for the photo!

We find a good number of caches in cemeteries. For some reason, they are usually still there,  unlike many other geocaches along the highways and in the towns.

storm build-up, but a beautiful photo

This was another geocache not on Hubby's list, but we wanted to beat the rain. A quick find in Cambridge at a closed restaurant.

Can you spot the difference in the two photos and find the geocache?

We reached our goal for day one. Caches found in six counties and reaching the southernmost one. Seventeen counties to go! Bonus? No rain and no storm.

Hamburg ~ City Hall (Rathaus)

 

Our lunch stop after visiting St. Nikolia.

We had eaten at a Hans im Glück when we visited Munich. I was excited to learn it was the place OFD had chosen for lunch. I finally got a radler and enjoyed most of that very large burger and tasty coleslaw salad. The interior of the restaurant chains has tree trunks as decor. The chain started in Munich in 2010. It is named after a Germanic fairy tale. 

Funny story about this postal carrier...OFD buys postcards and stamps at each port to send to her niece and nephew. It is always easy to find the postcards, but a bit more challenging to find stamps and a post box to mail them. In Hamburg, we had the cards ready for mailing, but we couldn't find a mailbox. As we were walking to St. Michaelis we met this mail carrier on the sidewalk. I asked if we could leave the stamped postcards with him to be mailed to the USA. He assured us he would get them sent and was willing to have his photo taken. Good memory!

Our final awe-inspiring building in Hamburg was our walk through City Hall or Rathaus.

This was our bus drop-off and meeting point after our self-tour of Hamburg. We saved this building until last.

Constructed from 1886 to 1897, the city hall still houses its original governmental functions with the office of the First Mayor of Hamburg and the meeting rooms for the Parliament and the Senate (the city's executive branch).

After the old city hall was destroyed in the great fire of 1842, as were the two churches we visited. (all of the building in the photo is part of City Hall)

Lions (and the police) guard the street entrance.

The tower is 367 feet high and has 436 steps. We did not climb them or count them.

The courtyard is decorated with a Hygieia fountain. Hygieia as the goddess of health and hygiene in Greek mythology. 

The fountain was built in remembrance of the cholera epidemic in 1892, the former technical purpose was air cooling in the city hall.

Its surrounding figures represent the power and pureness of the water. 

Isn't that a cool window?

the courtyard resembles an Italian piazza

City Hall has 647 (known) rooms; Buckingham Palace has 775 rooms

the ornate lobby

vaulted ceiling

public drinking/water fountain

The lobby is open to the public and hosts concerts and exhibitions.

the main doors of City Hall

one of the streets from Market Square

We saw very few homeless people or signs of a homeless population in any of the countries we visited. 

This photo is for Ruth: OFD is smiling! 

virtual souvenirs for two more German states (port state)

cruise port for Hamburg tour

The Sailor by Karlheinz Goedtke

Kiel, known for the sport of sailing, is a port on both sides of the Kiel Fjord, an inlet of the Baltic Sea, and lies at the eastern end of the Kiel Canal.

sailboats on the water as we left Kiel

lots of sailboats 

sunset on the Baltic Sea

freighter on the Baltic Sea

sunset

our cruise ship passed under this bridge on the way to Copenhagen

Next:  Copenhagen

My Home Town

 Last week my home town, Java, celebrated 125 years with a Quasicentennial celebration.

current population

welcome sign at the city park

entertainment happened under the big tent

drone shot of Main Street where the action was

three food trucks to feed the attendees

another drone shot of Main Street

the blue building in the center is the Java Bar

the Post Office is to the left of the bar

insurance building is to the right of the bar

the Community Center (used to be the Legion Hall)

is across the street from the buildings in the above photo

photos were on display in the Community Center

the first Java School building 1903-1921

the school building I attended, 1956-1968

it does NOT look this good today, but it is still standing 

at the south end of Main Street

also on display were two Community Calendars

from 1964-1967

I am in the white outfit in each of the photos

band majorette

 display of school uniforms and 

other donated clothing for the Quasi Celebration

the class of '68 got together Thursday afternoon

9 of the 13 surviving classmates attended

4 classmates have passed away

a souvenir from the Quasi Celebration

a Java icon

the drone photo

I never climbed the water tower, but I had classmates and know of other foolish kids who did.

the photo of Main Street looking north to the end of town

in 1956 when we moved to Java, both sides of  Main Street

had businesses; there were no empty lots

no longer there, but a great memory from my teen years

still standing, but no longer in use, is the women's bathroom

it is just north of the Community Center

There is no way of knowing how many people attended the Quasi Celebration. I looked for people whom I knew were there, but did not find them. Sometimes, I saw a familiar name, but when I was ready to walk over and say Hi, they had disappeared. It was VERY HOT and HUMID Thursday through Sunday; temperatures were in the high 90s. 

This was the sunset as I drove to Mom's house on Friday evening. I pulled off the road to take some photos.

this band of clouds was on the north side of me

Three miles from this spot, the wind hit the area. There was so much debris (leaves, dust) blowing across the highway, I could hardly see. It was hard to keep the car in my lane as the wind was so strong. The area was in a tornado watch, but I did not know that until I reached the house. There wasn't a tornado in that area, but it is the same evening when tornadoes killed three people in North Dakota, destroyed farms, and tipped grain-filled train cars off the railroad track. 

(My photos have a watermark. Other photos were 'taken' from other public shared sources.)