Time Out

I think everyone would agree that the past year has been a LONG year. A year ago, our local high school girls’ basketball team was undefeated and competing at the Kansas state basketball tournament. A year ago, college basketball teams were anxiously awaiting the NCAA tournament. And then the unthinkable happened. The state basketball tournament was halted. March Madness was cancelled. Schools were closed. Traditional spring events for high school students were cancelled or postponed.

For genealogists, the Family History Library in Salt Lake City closed along with the family history centers around the country. The National Archives closed their research rooms. Many other libraries and archives followed suit and closed to in person research.

Thus, the research trips that my husband and I were planning for the spring, summer and fall were no longer a reality. Those trips are still sometime in the future. Even though vaccines are rolling out, we are still leery of planning research trips since some research facilities are still closed.

Thus, we are planning to take time off from our at home research and take some day trips. This last week we traveled about 70 miles from Seneca to go to the Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge outside of Mound City, Missouri. This refuge is named after the bluffs formed on the East side of the river valley by the Missouri River.

But the highlight of the trip was the wildlife. Even though we only saw an empty Eagle’s nest and and Eagle flying in the distance, the birds did not disappoint. We say a few swans.

And we say lots of geese.

Very noisy geese!

It was an enjoyable ‘Time Out’! We are already planning a return trip next winter to see the Eagles.