We stayed the night with Bob & Mindy Christy on Thursday night in Akron, Oh.  They were delightful hosts, sharing their stories, food and cats with us.  They even scheduled a possum to come into their breezeway to add some excitement to the evening.

Bob & Mindy gave us the full tour of their place, including a tool tour.  My favorite tool wasn’t in the garage. Instead, it was Bob’s hand operated meat slicer from the 1950s.  I loved it!

Their love for jeeps is evident, with toys, calendars and pictures of them on many of the rustic wood walls of their cabin-like house.  In fact, they both worked on their beloved CJ-3B jeep, ‘Gertrude’, restoring it in time  for their wedding about a decade ago.  At the end of their wedding they drove away in it.  Positioned proudly over their fireplace mantel is a wedding picture of them next to it.

Their friends Bob and Brenda eventually joined us and we all went out to dinner at their favorite restaurant, the Falcon.  On the way we discovered that Ann and Bob had the same job in the Air Force, so talk quickly shifted to comparing notes on all kinds of things that went over my head.

Once we arrived at the restaurant, we enjoyed a fine meal. One of their specialties is the falcon burger, but I was disappointed to learn there was no actual falcon meat used to make it.

When we returned, Bob (of Bob and Brenda) pulled out a stack of 4WD catalogs freshly printed.  Gertrude recently made the cover of the Vintage Jeep 4WD Catalog.  Below is a picture of the catalog with me on the left and Bob on the right and Gertrude in the background and on the Catalog.  Many thanks to Bob and Mindy for their hospitality!!

After leaving Bob and Mindy we traveled north to North Tonawanda, where we stopped by the local Museum.  The museum is a work in progress.  We stopped to learn how far the museum has come in developing its Wurlitzer collection, as my Great Great Grandfather is Rudolph Wurlitzer.  We learned that they hope to have an area devoted to the Wurlitzer family and the Wurlitzer Piano and Organ Company by December.  The head of the museum was kind enough to take us ‘in back’ and give us a special tour.

From there, we drove to Niagara Falls to see it at night.  The lights were very cool and we used up all kinds of digital space shooting picture after picture!  Today we head towards Rochester for more family research.  The picture below shows the city of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, in the background and the falls to the left.  Changing colors of  lights from Canada shine onto the falls, illuminating them in different ways.  At 9pm, those crazy Canadians started launching fireworks, too.  Though chilly, it was a beautiful night!