Independence, Missouri

Working our way to Lincoln, Nebraska, we stopped in Independence.  As with so many of the towns we visit, there is a lot of interesting architecture.

There are several denominations of churches within a few blocks… always interesting to see.  These two were so close I thought it would be illustrative of how tightly packed the churches were… and then realized it is an addition to an existing, growing church.

A horse drawn history tour:

President Harry Truman lived in this house, and used it as a Summer White House:

A nice “Peace Park” is watched over by this elegant little lady:

 

After seeing so much traditional architecture, it was slightly surprising to come across this interesting spire:

We were naturally drawn to it… turns out is is a temple for the Community of Christ; which seems to be a “Reformed” LDS denomination.  There were lots of cars in the parking lot, so we dared to enter.  We were just in time for the last number of a fantastic Choral Concert.  Awesome acoustics in the hall were perfect for the beautiful choir.

 

Spartan Mansion

In a storage area of our campground I spotted an old silver trailer.  I knew it wasn’t an Airstream, but thought it might be a Silver Streak or another make I knew as a kid.  It turned out to be a Spartan Mansion…  Spartan was an aircraft manufacturer in the early 1900’s.  J. Paul Getty bought the company around 1935, and with housing shortages in WWII started using aircraft manufacturing techniques to build portable housing.  There were a couple of models with palatial names like “Manor” and “Mansion”.  While a “Spartan Mansion” may seem like an oxymoron, they were quite nice for their time, and a refurbished 1951 Mansion sold recently for $350,000.  Not this one:

 

Lincoln, Nebraska

After arriving in Lincoln, we parked our “home” at Union College.  We love this school, where both our daughters spent some time, so we have volunteered to help Maranatha upgrade the girl’s dorm.  The volunteer time starts in about 3 weeks, so we have time to Jet to Washington to see our kids and help Karen close out the school year and inventory her kindergarten classroom.

 

Tri-Cities, Washington

Karen has been wanting to build a teepee for a while.  When finding that several of her kindergarten class didn’t have a clue what a teepee was, she decided to get it done.  Here is how you build a teepee in less than 40 seconds:

 

Show and Tell

Bryan’s second grade class was to have a “Show & Tell” day… and Bryan wanted to bring the lawn mower, because he enjoys mowing the lawn.  Since that seemed a bit unwieldy, we decided to document a bit of mowing.  The K-2 classes found this great fun:

 

Cheyenne

My son-in-law Loren has bought into a beautiful plane- a Piper Cheyenne. A pressurized turbine twin, it has seats for 7 and looks fast even sitting in its hanger!

Outside the hanger are several helicopters, including an old Bell helicopter that seemed to be meticulously restored.  It made me think of the old “Whirlybirds” TV show I saw as a kid.  Cool.

 

Flight to Lewiston, Idaho

Just in case you haven’t been fortunate enough to read it in previous blogs, my son-in-law Loren is an Ophthalmologist working for a great company that flies surgeons and teams to cities all over the northwest.  And I bum rides when I can, for the simple pleasure of flying right seat in beautiful Citation Jet III’s.  It’s quite a ride!  Smooth, quiet, with amazing acceleration.  We had moderate icing on the way to Lewiston, Idaho, and rain all the way back.  No big deal.  Just fast and fun!

 

Last day of School

The final day of class had lots of fun, food and frivolity!

 

And now the Friday night sunset that closed the final day of school: