VESTIGES OF WINTER AND MARCH'S FOOLS

Last week in Montana we admired the picturesque contrast of receeding snow lines against the emerald evergreens in the Elkhorns. Balmy temperatures in the 50's gave us a false sense of Spring fever. We hiked Mount Helena, going up its icy slippery north slope. The slow going on the way up should have rudely awakened us to Winter's weak, but still obvious grip in our part of the country. Back in Wyoming, wet heavy snow fell today as the temperatures dropped and the sky darkened. Once more, we were fooled by March's Spring-like display. I will admit, we enjoyed having been fooled. JIR

Quilt of Valor

Here is my latest Quilt of Valor. It goes to the son of a friend, I am not sure he needs a QOV, since I don't know of any injuries, including PTSD, but after four deployments with an infrantry marine unit, I think he has earned something. It is a "Blackford's Beauty" block, from a pattern on quiltville.com. Blackford's Beauty was named after a river crossing near Sharpsburg, MD, whichs was used by the Confederate army of Northern Virginia just before the battle of Antietem. The closeups are of the quilting: a metallic eagle, the marine symbol (eagle/globe/anchor), and wrote in the sashing: Untied States Marine Corps, David G---, American Hero. I stitched in the ditch around each star, and then used McTavishing type quilting for the white areas. All in all I think it achieved the look I wanted.

Oh, this quilt is a surprise to this Marine and his parents, I'll post some of her response when I get it.

"A few of my favorite things..." Seems they always are about food, hmm, no wonder I am on Weight Watchers. The top is our first night out, The Dining Room, as Jorge mentioned in an earlier post, then are of Weibles Wirtshaus, definitely a favorite for local fare, and finally "Demels" Pastry shop and bakery, I cannot tell you how good 'lunch' was there. We ate pastries every day for lunch, with the viennese coffee, it was just perfect.

The above pictures are Jorge in front of the sign for the musical "We Will Rock You." It was in German, but still worth it, and I hope to find it in the United States and see it in English one of these days.
Jorge in front of the opera house, and then him in the town of Leoben, the town the 'family plot.' is.
The last is another picture of the church in Leoben (or one of the churches, we didn't have time to go in the others), I was very intrigued how they weren't afraid to mix the old with the new.
A little note on Leoben: I am not positive this is the 'town' where Nana was from (Nana being my grandmother), but it is where "Max Eisenhut" is buried, as I have a certificate saying so. Is Max her brother? I am not positive with that either, but the last name is the same, and she had this certificate. Then, almost ALL the pictures we have of the family, some one which has 'Karl' labeled on it, were developed in Leoben, as the town and company are printed on the back of each pictures. There are two other pictures labeled, one which is older then the rest, maybe late 1800's, and it is from "Wien" (Vienna), and one which might be Max, and it is from "Graz", a town about two hours away. But both Leoben and Graz are from the provence of "Steirmark" or the English name of "Styria", similar to our states, only larger. I am sure she is from this area, as it is all mining and there are many trains. Both certificates I have from family, Max and Karl, are listed as train conductors. A little mystery, but I am working on filling in the blanks. I'll keep everyone posted.

Here are some close up shots of the 'family' plot, and one picture of the Vienna Boys Choir singing at mass.

MORE VIENNA

The pictures above depict our trip through a small area of the Austrian Alps to Leoben, a small industrial town where Linda was pretty sure her great uncle was buried. The landscape pictures were taken during our 2 hour train ride to Leoben. The next three pictures show a sample of Leoben's architecture, inside St Xavier's Church, and the grave of Linda's great uncle Max Eisenhut, which to our surprise also contained the remains of several other members of the family.

Here's another installment of pictures from Vienna. Our hotel room at the Albatros Hotel was small by american standards, but very clean and quite adequate considering the little amount of time we spent in it. Scrolling up is St Peter's Church, one of many churches we saw in this overwhelmingly Catholic country. Next is the Schonbrunn Palace, summer home of the monarchy. We weren't sure why the monarchs needed a summer home a couple of miles from their regular palace, but that's the way it was back then. Next is a typical subway station and subway, this one closer to street level than the underground stations. Finally, the massive St Stephan's Cathedral.