The Four Graveyards and a Wedding Road Trip: now pulling into blog city, population, me

WHEN LAST WE LEFT OUR INTREPID HEROINES….

I know, I know, who can remember back that far, right?! Talk about a long anticipation for a story finish.

So, just to recap… Stage One. We stopped off at Peach World (it’s been two years, yes, I did finish that peach moonshine I got there and let me tell you, the second half of the bottle took me a lot longer to get through than the first half. That stuff did not age well. Then we stopped at everyone’s favorite female conjoined twin gravesite, of Daisy and Violet Hilton.

On to Stage Two recap. We didn’t want to make the boys feel unloved, so we also stopped at the gravesite of Chang and Eng Bunker, probably the most recognizable names in conjoined twins. We also stopped and got lunch at some random locally owned restaurant and y’all, I’m still dreaming about that fettuccine alfredo.

During Stage Three, we found a locally owned yarn store (you know we’re contractually obligated to do that, right?) and then Sharon took me to mecca, I mean, to Tamarack. I’m still not over that… it was so inspiring! I really, really want to go back some day.

Then came Friday… the day so long and amazing I had to divide it up into three posts, and I never even finished the third post. So, first off, we went up to Walton’s Mountain — I mean, to Sharon’s brother’s paintball location. He wanted to show me the views, and my goodness, the views were amazing. So was the tiny baby fawn we saw. Then we had some extra time, so Sharon took me to the cemetery where her parents are buried. I still love that Sharon could tell me about a good half of the people buried there – who they were, who they were in relation to her people, and why they were dead. Small towns, man. Love ’em!

Anyway. So, that’s to recap. Next up: The restored Esso gas station in Kingwood, West Virginia… followed by our friend’s wedding, the reason for the road trip in the first place… but then we couldn’t resist the pull of Poe’s grave over in Baltimore, my home town, where we also ran into some old family friends. After that, one more family cemetery – my family, this time, which my aunt was kind enough to meet us at and give us the family tour of… and after that, we drove home! Whew. Those stories, all coming before the end of this year, pinky swear. I’m writing them all up tomorrow and setting them to auto-post (don’t tell my boss but I’m taking tomorrow off, haha).

XOXO, Sharonita, my friend. I’m sorry it took me so long to finish talking about this – it’s not because you’re not my favorite!