Idaho

The trip to Idaho was great. If you haven't heard the complicated explanation, you're probably wondering why Grandma and I were driving out to Idaho from Omaha. My Grandpa Lind passed away last spring. He wanted to be buried in Idaho near the tiny town he grew up in. To make that happen, we needed to get the ashes out to the Rockland Cemetery. Grandma didn't want to fly, and we didn't want her driving out there by herself, so we decided Christina and I would take turns driving with her. It was my job to drive out with her, so I flew to Omaha last Tuesday. The trip took two days. Grandma allowed me to help with the driving, so I had fun speeding down the highway in her nice Toyota Corolla at 75 mph. When you normally only get to drive 60, 75 is a lot of fun. I've been on I-80 through Nebraska and Wyoming before. It's sometimes very beautiful, and often very desolate out there. We spent our night on the road at Laramie, Wyoming. If you ever get out there, be sure to check out the Laramie River greenbelt, and don't spend the night at Super 8.

We stayed with Grandma's sister Lenore in American Falls, ID. A lot of Grandma's family lives in American Falls, so I got to see quite a few of my relatives (many of whom I didn't remember). I really enjoyed meeting them all.

On Friday Mom, Dad, and Christina came down and we went out to Rockland Cemetery and buried the ashes. After that we headed further down the road to Roy, where Grandpa grew up. It's not really a town now, but it used to be a little farming community. This is my Great-grandma Lind's old house. It's been abandoned for a long time, and it's really deteriorating. Great-grandma Lind was the post-mistress of Roy and ran the post office through her house.

Here's a bunch of the relatives together on the day we left.

I got to meet Grandma's three sisters who live in the area.

Grandma and Aunt Lenore

Grandma and Aunt Janet

Grandma and Aunt Betty

It was so good to go back and learn about my family roots. Between important places in our family's past that we visited and relatives I got to meet, the trip made me feel much more connected than I've been in the past.

We've just gotten finished with our Heritage Celebration at church. We used to call it Heritage Weekend, but since we had events every day Wednesday through Sunday, we can't really use that term anymore. It was all very good. Dr. R.C. Sproul Jr. was able to come and give us a conference on the family. It did make this past weekend incredibly busy for our family, though. On top of that, Mom was at a family reunion on the East Coast, so the three of us had to survive it all without her! Thank goodness for cell phones; it was nice to be able to text each other and check up on what was going on.

As though this past week wasn't busy enough, I'll be on the road this next week, helping Grandma drive to Idaho. We're both looking forward to it. I'll make more posts when I get back.