chill after hours

I had a great day, but I'm weirdly exhausted and need to go to bed. I suppose I'm exhausted because I spent six hours in my dad's truck - but we didn't ever get more than twenty miles away from home. I dragged my parents on a quest to see a bunch of old cemeteries, of which there are a couple of dozen, all in varying states of upkeep and with varying accessibility choices. My dad drove, which was a really good thing - he has encyclopedic knowledge of who owned which farms and where the property boundaries are, and while some of the people he referenced were long-dead, it was still fun to hear the stories.

So, we hit up ten or so - some of them were more interesting than others, but all had an air of peaceful melancholy. There were a lot of markers for infant children, as might be expected in a frontier cemetery. There were some interesting stones, occasionally markers for Civil War vets, and many others that could no longer be read. Some of the cemeteries were down dirt roads, which was a trick since it rained over the weekend - luckily we were in my dad's truck, and not my Audi (or the Sunfire that I used to have - I would be dying somewhere if I'd attempted some of those roads in a two-door coupe. The stories and images sparked some ideas for me....not sure what book this will become, or how it will translate into a plot, but it was lovely to spend the day driving around with my parents and I'm looking forward to seeing what these stories become.

When we got home, I took a break and typed up some notes. Then I made chocolate chip chewies to reward my dad for driving me around. Then I relaxed / did some personal work / talked to Chris (a cousin on my mom's side who happens to be one of our nearest neighbors - he stopped by to get something and chatted for a long time). And now I really need to sleep - goodnight!