We're in for another mild day, but with 4-5 inches of snow cover, we aren't likely to see bare ground before the colder weather arrives later this week.

I was up early (for me) this morning, in order to find out if oldest son, Bill, and family would be flying out of Burlington for NYC on their way to Namibia.  The weather was fine and the plane left only a few minutes late, at 6:10 a.m.  As I write, they are aboard a big South African airbus for the very long trip to Johannesburg, and from there another short hop to Windhoek where they'll rent a car and drive first to Walvis Bay, about 5 hours by auto, where they'll spend a few days and then go on to Oshakati where Monika's family lives, about 12 hours by car.  We will be tracking them while they are flying, and hope to keep in touch regularly by e-mail.

I've had a couple of people contact me with very good suggestions for finding information about West Danville history.  We will be exploring various resources, including newspaper archives and town records, along with whatever interviews and photographs we can collect from various residents, former residents or their family members.  Here's a photo of the gas station that was located where the parking lot is now.  I can't tell you what year it might have been, but probably in the 1930's.  We should have more information on photos like this as we progress.

Some of you may remember seeing this ultra-modern dome  home set up near the beach when Larrabee's Building Supply was in the old school house.  Both these pictures are from Dotty Larrabee's collection.  She couldn't remember what the domed house was called or who the manufacturer was, but perhaps someone will know and contact us.  We think it may be a foam structure.  Dot said as she recalls, they didn't sell any of these.

And so we continue our quest.  I have lots of old photographs to restore, in between checking the flight to Johannesburg.  I use a live tracking site that lets me track them in real time.  JoAnn said she is prepared to sleep most of the trip; Monika and Bill expect Tangeni to remain wide awake for the whole trip, judging from their experience last spring when they flew to Florida to visit Disney World.  This is such a long flight, I suspect she will take a nap or two.  She's a good little traveler, but this will be quite a test of endurance for her and all of them.  It will be hot, dry, with not much to see a lot of the time when they are driving.  But the end result, seeing Grandma Floriana again (it's been about a year since Floriana was here) and meeting lots of relatives for the first time will be exciting.  We just hope they arrive safely.