Mom and Dad came for a long weekend in Connecticut. Mom, in particular, was excited because she had recently uncovered some long lost relatives who lived and died in Simsbury, Connecticut more than 200 years ago. A serious genealogist, Mom could not wait to visit the local historical library to learn a little bit more about who these folks were and how they lived.
Successfully completing our mission on Saturday, we determined that there are some good secondary sources about at least one of the families, the Holcombs. While at the library, I ran into one Lawrence Phelps, a middle age guy wearing a Boston Red Sox shirt. He was on a quest to find the original Phelps' homestead and final resting place of the Mr. Phelps who first settled Simsbury. Lawrence told me that he was the 11th generation to live in the area, and that he had touched the gravestones of 9 of his forefathers but was missing this one. The original Mr. Phelps passed away before the town cemetery was started and likely was buried on his homestead. Wherever that was. A cool story.
After leaving there, we drove around West Hartford for a while before finally stopping at Ben & Jerry's for a cone. The power of ice cream always amazes me. It has the ability to take one back to their child hood. At one point on the ride home, I glanced over at my mother. She was sitting there with her feet dangling off the seat, eating her cone and giggling. Could have been 10 years old again. Wicked cool.
Our search of the local cemetery today did not turn up any Holcomb headstones. We'll have to head back there when we have a little more time. Some of those old headstones are a little hard to read.
While visiting the cemetery today, we snapped these shots of my folks. Luckily, I was able to nab a shot or two of the photo shy Susan in her natural habitat. Good work indeed.
It was one of those fast two day fly-work-sleep (a little)-work-fly trips. I landed, went to the hotel to check email, make a few phone calls and clean up before the reception that night. Afterwards, I went back to my room to sleep until about 2:30am, when it was time to stare at the walls and daydream about sleep. By the time I took the red-eye home at 12:30 am on Saturday, I was pooped. Check out this photo of people playing slots in the airport at midnight (who are they?). You can't hear it, but the Wheel of Fortune theme song is looping endlessly in the bacground.
I'm told that Vegas is an ideal trade show city, that people will fly there because of the many things to do outside of the exhibit hall. For those like me, that don't gamble, rooms are cheap, restaurants are plentiful and good, and there are plenty of activities. I might even want to visit the race car track nearby. Sources report that people can take three or four laps in a real NASCAR. Maybe I'll make the trip there one day as a visitor.
