Thanks!

if they have an opinion on what is happening in Freedonia.

My oldest daughter and her boyfriend moved to Springfield, Missouri for his job. It was their first household so they needed - well everything.
Saturday night @ 5 we are going for some cleaning supplies. I figured we could find a Wally World just driving down the main highway, but no such luck.

We were getting a little impatient and I suggest we pull off and get an ice cream. As we pulled up the exit there was a huge outdoor advertising sign that said "ASK JESUS." We all laughed and then I sad "Why not?"

So I bellowed out "Jesus Christ, where is the Walmart?" We then rolled over the apex of the exit ramp and there directly in front of me was the Walmart. MY daughter and her boyfriend just roared. Kept laughing for about five minutes. Wanted to go back over and over and ask for more things, but I said no.

We were driving north on route 15 going by Gettysburg, PA, when we saw a sign indicating a McDonalds off the next exit.

It did not tell us that the McDonald was several miles away in downtown Gettysburg.

As we drove and drove and drove, looking for the elusive McDonalds, we came across first the big visitors center for the Gettysburg battlefields. "They have bathrooms!" We stopped, used the facility. After we felt much more relieved and relaxed, we decided to look around the visitor center a little bit. I stopped at the bookstore, which had many books on the battle I had never seen before. I decided to look through some indexes to see if I could find mention of my great-grandfather, who I knew had been in the battle, but very little else.

I found him listed. I learned that he had been detailed from the First Maine Cavalry as a courier for the Pennsylvania Bucktails, who fought a retreating action on the first day of the battle as the Confederates moved into Gettysburg. I knew from another family history that he had been the last man sitting on a horse. Men on horseback were usually commanding officers, and the first to be targeted. While I have no direct account from my great-grandfather, I found in this bookstore an after-action report by his commander.

So, what do we do? We drive over to the battlefield and see the exact area where my great-grandfather fought. It was actually rather an undramatic farm field, but most of the Gettysburg battlefield is undramatic.

So, I picked up a big chunk of family history because we wanted to find a bathroom at McDonalds. We were actually on the way to visit my parents, too.

My brother has been doing a lot of genealogy research and found out that our great-great-great grandfather was a well-off sea captain, lived out the rest of his life in Virginia and they are doing an archaeological dig at the home-site. I'd love to go check that out.

driver's girlfriend calls to say that there was an accident tying up the Autobahn, so we would be sitting in traffic for a while. We took the next exit. Dachau. Spent a few hours there and then continued on. Strange day.

Dachau must have been very heavy.