Onward, Pressing Onward

I would like to have a well-organized travelogue of our journey. I am beginning to believe I'm incapable of organizing anything lately. We had uneventful, uncrowded flights. The weather in my beloved Idaho was perfect. A little frosty the first morning, but the afternoons were glorious. Idaho in October is lovely most of the time.

We went to Eden and saw Erma. She was like a mom to Rick after his mother died. She's 93 and just a firecracker. She lives in her home by herself but doesn't drive any more. That was Rick's main motivation in going to Idaho. You never know how many times we have left to see some of these cherished people.

The first day there Mom was up, dressed, and in the best spirits and more alert than we've seen her in years. I was so excited visiting I forgot to take a picture. She recognized Rick. And though she looped the same things over and over, she was pretty coherent. Then this is a picture of the second day. She was not present at all that day. Wouldn't talk. Wouldn't listen. The look on her face says it all. She's just disgusted with everything. Then the last day she was somewhat OK. She kept asking me where the babies were, so I think she had me confused with Rachel. We bought her Diet Coke, toasted coconut marshmallows, candy, cookies, and new clothes. Mom and I are probably the only people in the U.S. who like those marshmallows. I must admit I ate my share. She'd want me to, I know. Those and mincemeat pie have always been our favorites. When I'm not with her I don't have an excuse. Thanks, Mom. Next time it's the pie for sure.

(Why do these pictures take so long to download or upload or whatever I'm trying to do?) We visited Shoshone Falls and drove all over Magic Valley just looking at old haunts and checking out the beautiful fields, pivots, and wide open spaces. It's just wonderful to see the expanses of land still left without houses. I sure hope it stays that way for my the rest of my life time. I didn't take pictures of any of that. I'm so busy looking that I forget to take photos.

We spent all of Friday afternoon in two cemeteries in Gooding and one in Shoshone. Weird, I know! Maybe Jan will appreciate our efforts. We were looking for Rick's ancestors who were early settlers in the towns of Gooding and Shoshone.

Many of the graves were over a hundred years old. I don't really know who this baby was. Thomas was Rick's grandfather's brother or his great uncle, I guess. I just thought this headstone was great. (macabre much?)

This was the grave site I wanted to find. It's in the Pioneer Cemetery in Gooding and it's filled with the graves of people who died in the 1800s and early 1900s. This was Rick's  great grandmother Esther Goddard who died in 1910. The interesting thing about this is that most of these graves are unmarked or the grass has grown over very old and unreadable stones. This marker was completely buried under grass. It wasn't visible at all. We just kept looking across the field for little dents in the grass. Then we'd dig bare handed and we amazingly happened to find her marker. I knew it was there somewhere because of a picture on ancestry.com, but I didn't know where in the graveyard it was.

Most of these really old ones are unreadable in the picture. I just loved their antiquity.

We did a few things besides tromp around among the dead. That just happened to be the highlight for me. Am I ghoulish? We never had time to investigate these things when we lived there. We were too busy working. So it was most interesting for us. Next time I'll wear better shoes. My feet were screaming.

We were excited that the Cardinals won the World Series. Lola and Barley were happy to see us. I've almost finished the laundry from our jaunt. That's about all the news I have. You'd think I'd have a more tantalizing post.

I'm glad to be home. Tomorrow is Halloween, isn't it. I'm not doing a thing so don't expect a holiday post.