Well, $543 later I am on me way to Alberta.........anybody wanna buy a house?
It is a cool snap going on right now, down into the 50sF at night, and wet.
This morning I went up to the Blue Ridge Parkway, it was still foggy at 10am. I met up with three cousins at the Rakes Mill Pond overlook to take them out to the family plot at Woods Gap. There was no traffic on the road at all, so while I waited I got to check out the beaver dams on the creek, contimplate if Dannilynn would be at the Kentucky Derby and meet the Queen, and free up space in my camera by deleting photos of nasty rental houses off the hard drive.
Two of the cousins I met last year on the pilgrimage I lead. They are brothers. The other guy was from SF and shared a common grandmother, who had been lured away by her second husband from her first. Like most people looking for the Woods Gap Cemetery he had been there before and looked all thru them hills with no luck.
So we headed off down the pig path, past the pond. The road to the plot has been regraded and if it were dry we might have drove all the way too it. Right now my boots are caked with mud, drying in the corner.
We are so lucky we have this place few can find. A place where the ancestors can rest in peace and the world around them change very little in 150 years. In face, it shows a lot less effects of humanity than it did a few decades ago. We spoke of our recent family, people who 60 years ago lived in a three room house with 12 children and wondered how they could have the privacy to have so many. How they struggled to have a pair of shoes for each, a few clothes for each. Compare that with today. Walmart existing like some temple for us to come fill up with plastic crap and processed sugar. How did it change so fast?
I watched a really good movie last night, "Mrs. Henderson Presents". It was so nice to see Judi Dentch fixed up and look glamorous. If you have not seen it I highly recommend it.