The Long Goodbye

Saturday ended up being a very long day for me. I got up around 5:30 AM feeling not as bad as the night before, but not better by any means. It was a long drive to Waynesboro, but one of the good things about being up that early on a Saturday is that there isn't a whole lot of traffic on the road. So because of that fact my drive ended up being pretty uneventful for the most part. The sun was briefly out for maybe a half an hour after sunrise, but then disappeared behind the clouds never to be seen again for the rest of the weekend. And then the rain started about an hour before I got to Waynesboro and never really let up.

Once there I met up with everyone on the farm and changed. From there we went to the graveside service where I ended up being a pallbearer (it was a last minute thing, one of the people didn't show up). After that we attended the church service and then a reception afterwards. I got to see a lot of old relatives that I know. And I got to see lots and lots of relatives I recognize, but have no idea who they are. I also got to see a fair amount of relatives that I didn't know nor recognize (which would be even more awkward when they would come up and obviously know me).

During the reception there were photo albums of Hazel, with pictures all through her life. What I found impressive what that they were all captioned in her own writing. It was an impressive collection of photos. Some of the more recent pictures included one whole section of her going on a motorcycle ride last year for her 90th birthday. Seeing pictures of her hanging on while doing 60 mph down the road makes me hope I'll be that energetic at that age (provided, you know, that I make it to that age). After the reception I spent the rest of the day hanging around with my Mom, Frank, Mary, Will and Jo Beth.





I had been hoping the weather would be nice, since Waynesboro can actually be a good place to get some photos, but with the rain I really wasn't able to get any good shots. I took some inside the barn, but I really don't think any of them were visually impressive. Although I may throw up a couple of those over the course of the next week.




Then once the day was done I made the long drive back home. I was pretty much wasted once I got back. And apparently I was stupid and ended up leaving my wallet back in Waynesboro (I actually realized this on the road home, but there was no way I was turning around after having been on the road for an hour already).

So what did Ginger and the kids do while I was gone? Well Ginger got to take the kids to another birthday party at Pump it Up. Don't really have any pictures of the event though since she had the small hand held camera. It was in sports mode so all the pictures of the kids turned out blurry (because of the whole no flash in sports mode). So the one to the right is one of the best shots we got. That would be my fault for leaving the camera in that mode before I gave it to her. But I'm sure I'll have more chances for pictures of them there since it seems to be a pretty popular birthday location at the moment.