CENTRAL CITY & BLACK HAWK, CO

After seeing the ghost town, we went to Central cIty and had the buffet at Ameristar. Don and Marilyn had two "two fers" so we swapped partners at the cash register, since they were both in their names. The food was good, and our "dates" were fun. The big building on the left is Ameristar.

Between Central City and Black Hawk, which is just down the hill, there are 10,000 slot machines in umpteen casinos. Don could hardly wait to get started-and he started very well.

I had a slow start but made up for it later. Bullwhackers was my favorite.

Marilyn cooked for us twice and we took them to their favorite Mexican restaurant. We showed them how to do some family research at the library and a cemetery, and we chatted for hours. We'd like to thank them again for a wonderful time with good friends!

A FEW DAYS IN DENVER

We spent a few days in Denver doing some research and visiting our neighbors in Arizona, Don and Marilyn Karsten. One day, they took us through the foothills, up to a little ghost town named Nevadaville. His grandfather was born there, struck gold, and had a saloon in this building.

Please excuse the quality of this picture as it was taken from the car, but it once was a gold mine.

There were many ruins of stores and houses, and a few houses left, that are inhabited.

The area around was very pretty.

It was a real cool place!

WATER,WATER EVERYWHERE

Even before we left Lake Manawa, there was water sitting everywhere because of all the recent rains. I was looking for Noah to see if I could hitch a ride on his ark-I'm willing to take Mulert with me, just to escape the rain. As we left the campground, the ditches were full.

You wonder how the construction workers accomplish anything with all the mud they have to deal with.

The farmers really have a problem.





You can't see it in the picture above, but many areas are yellow which is a sign of stress. There are many crops that look good, but there are also many, many that look bad. The creeks and streams are either out of there banks or very full also.

We also saw a house that was flooded along the Platte River, but I wasn't fast enough to get a picture. Hopefully the rain will stop soon!

LAKE MANAWA

We stayed overnight in Council Bluffs on the way to Denver. One of my friends was hungry.

Whoops, I got caught!

They sure are fun to watch.

CEDAR VALLEY ARBORETUM

We walked around the arboretum, which had some pretty flowers.


These delphinium were lovely.

Pretty lilies.

A couple water lilies-they also had pink and rose colored ones.

They had a children's area. It's hard to see, but there are railroad tracks going through the vegetable garden.

Here's part of the rose garden.

We did a little meditating while walking one of Mulert's favorite things-a labyrinth.

It's a nice garden, but it's got a long way to go to equal Dubuque!!!

THE GROUT MUSEUM

When you pay for the Veterans Museum, you also are able to go through the Grout Museum, since it's attatched. There were several interesting exhibits.




I enjoyed the butterflies.

IOWA VETERANS MUSEUM

We got to Waterloo a little early, so decided to do a little sightseeing. We went through the Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum.

It's named after the five Sullivan brothers who were all killed in WWII because they were serving together in the same place. After this happened, I thought the rules were rewritten so a multiple family tradgedy can no longer occur, but that's a myth. The Navy does discourage siblings on the same ship. This is a bronze statue of the brothers.

Since this is about Iowa veterans, there's a memorial where your relatives can be remembered. Carl J. Moes, was my father's brother who was killed in WWII. You're able to obtain papers at the gift shop or on the web site to submit the names of your relatives who served in any war from Iowa. I don't know how they got my uncles name-Don's uncle was also killed, but not on the scroll.

Because of Carl's death, my grandmother was a gold star mother with a banner in her window. How would you feel if you were Mrs. Sullivan?

One of the things I liked about the museum, was the way they included Iowa women, not only for their military service, but how they also helped out at home. Everyone knows they took over jobs in the factories, but it also showed their Red Cross service. I grew up with my mother and aunt knitting sweaters and caps in WWII, and bandages in the Korean War. I have their pins they earned for hours of service, for which they were very proud.

Don served 4 years in the Navy, so he never got in a tank-until now.

It was nice to see our veterans are being remembered.