Back from West Virginia

As some of you know, we are recently back from an impromptu trip to West Virginia. Matt's grandma, June Moses, passed away. It was quite sudden and left the whole family reeling as we all tried to find (somewhat) reasonable transportation to a very rural part of the Appalachians. I, unfortunately, had never met his grandma. He had talked to her on the phone often, and even before the wedding we tried to fly her to Minnesota to see all of us (she also never met Matt's niece), but in the midst of the trip planning she broke her hip, and the trip was delayed. For my part, I will forever be sad that I never got to meet her.

In memory of June Moses

The silver lining of that cloud was that the entire Moses family gathered in West Virginia. As Matt's parents live in Colorado, it's rare for everyone to be together. It was priceless to be in the region of Matt's roots, and to spend time with Matt's dad, Earl, listening to stories about his boyhood in the mountains and having him show us the places he, his parents, and his grandparents lived. Two of the four days we were gone were devoted to travel; we flew into Washington, D.C. and then drove through Virginia and into southeast West Virginia. The other two days, we dealt with details relating to the funeral, and then of course there was the funeral itself. Matt was a pallbearer; I was simply there to stand by his side and hold his hand when I could. In between some of these sad details, we drove over the New River Gorge Bridge, home of Bridge Day, and through towns like Thurmond and Glen Jean, once thriving towns near the coal mines and now home to the National Park Service and famed white water rafting. My favorite experience was standing at the historic Thurmond train depot, as Matt, his parents, and I waited for Amtrak to deliver Matt's sister and her family. Earl used to wait for the bus just outside this train depot, and his grandparents lived on the mountain directly behind the depot, Beury Mountain. With sounds of train whistles and footsteps on the plank walkway, the sight of the train dropping off its passengers, the iron railroad bridge directly behind us ... I felt transported back many decades.

The Moses family at the New River Gorge Bridge

I put additional pictures of our trip on my Flickr page.

Sunday Afternoon at the Track

On Sunday, I needed to pick up some plants I had ordered from Landscape Alternatives, northeast of the Twin Cities. I was hoping Matt, Hannah, and I could have a nice Sunday drive together. Well, lo and behold, Matt informed me that he needed to be at the track Sunday afternoon! It wasn't quite what I had planned, but after a lot of discussion we decided that we could ride together part of the way: I'd drop him off, then go get my plants, and meet him back at the track. The key to all of this was that Hannah would still get to go with us; I'm pretty protective of making sure that she gets to have fun on the weekends and spend lots of time with us, since she's home alone so much during the week.

It worked out great. I got my plants, Matt took pictures, and then Hannah and I got to sit in the stands! Our scared-of-people dog behaved absolutely wonderfully, giving only one small bark. She let strangers pet her and hung out with mom quite nicely. At one point, she decided she was tired of sitting on the ground and, after repeatedly being told "off" by me, insisted that she climb the bleachers in order to get a better view of the racing! It was funny - it really seemed like she was watching all the action on the track, and sat riveted for the rest of the race! Matt took this picture of us watching the race: