Bright Lights, Big City

I don’t figure any of you are interested in the conference, so Tuesday, after a day of talks, I was pooped. The conference was having a reception with zip-lining on the 51st floor. I had no plans to zip anywhere, so I took a shower, called mom, and fell asleep during NCIS (I know!  Unheard of!)

Wednesday morning, I was up at 5. I decided to go downstairs, get some coffee, and go sit outside where I knew they’d be serving our conference breakfast and maybe get some writing done. But as I’m going down the elevator, it stopped on the 8th floor and the thought flit through my mind, “I wonder what the odds are of it being Shannon.” After all, there were ten possible elevators. But sure enough, the doors open and it was Shannon! Spooky, I know. We hit Starbucks where I tried the salted sea Carmel mocha thing and it was wonderful. When we got to the patio, the breakfast was already being served. We found a table in the shade and chatted and were soon joined by some people, one of whom was a women who kept mentioning that her daughter was the “Instagram Cat Lady,” who was publishing a book this fall, who were telling us about the zip-lining.

Holly showed up and nabbed a couple of chairs saying someone was joining us. Turns out she’d met this person from Indy the night before while zip-lining named Melody. Shannon had to fly back to Charlotte, so she’d be leaving that morning, but Melody wasn’t leaving until the next day, so she joined our merry band and spent the day with us.

Again, I know that no one is interested in conference details, but I will say that Wednesday’s keynote speaker was a guy named Jon Acuff. He talked about ways to get to finished, as in getting some of our many goals, projects, etc, finished. He was hysterical and the conference was giving us his book for free, so we got in line to get the book and he was signing them. (Making this the second book signing I’d been to in five days).

At the end of the conference, they were giving away prizes, a two person hammock. Well, those who know where I live know that I live in a condo with a 3rd floor balcony. So of course, I won a hammock. Better yet, each winner had to go up on the stage to get his/her prize and then they had to draw the name of the next winner. I had to draw at least 5 names before we happened to find someone who was present.. and they wouldn’t let me leave the stage until I picked a winner; oiy!

By then, we’re hungry and Matt (sales rep) was supposed to take us to In-n-Out Burger. But then he conveniently couldn’t go because he “had” to “fly home” to his “family.” He did make it up to us, though, by getting us tickets to the Ferris Wheel and getting Holly and me (I?) tix for another performance of Love. So, he’s forgiven. (Matt, you know we love you!)

We did find our way to In-n-Out Burger with the first of many Uber trips on Wednesday - it was good.  The food reminded me of a really good Rally's burger, only with the special In-n-Out sauce - similar to Big Mac sauce.  The highlight of the visit was Josh, the very friendly/informative person behind the counter - he explained the whole In-n-Out experience to us three newbies, and he even agreed to have his pic taken with Gnate.  Generally, just a great advertisement for the business.

After lunch, we had to go back to the hotel, because Melody and I had an appointment.*  We hit it off really well, both paralegals, from Indiana... who wanted to get...  well now, long time readers know I like to get souvenirs when I travel. I went to Charleston to visit Donna and got one; then when Natalie and I went to Gulf Shores, we both got one; so now, here in Vegas, both Melody and I got one. Of course, I’m talking tattoos. Holly was too chicken to get one. I kept telling Matt that it was going to say I (heart) Matt, but I figured Don, our software trainer, would get jealous, so I came up with something else.

After a wee rest in our rooms, we rejoined with plans to go visit "old Vegas" or Fremont Street.  Now, having grown up in the 70's, and having watched the TV show Vegas, starring Robert Urich, I expected to see Vegas like it was... and I was not disappointed.  Flashy neon signs, men is strange outfits, women in skimpy outfits with feathers, and slot machines!

Frankly, a couple of times, my innocent eyes were quite shocked!  (There are no pictures of those moments.)

After a while, the sun had set and we were ready to make our way to the ferris wheel to see the city by night.  Again, we Ubered to the Linq hotel and hopped aboard the ferris wheel.  I was expecting your usual ferris wheel, but turns out it was like the London Eye - where 30-40 people ride together and it takes 30 minutes to make it all the way around.

After the ferris wheel, I (the eldest of our little group) was getting tired and we had an early morning ahead of us.  Little did I know that by the end of the day the pedometer on my phone would say I'd walked 5.8 miles that day!  Anyway, we started to make our way toward the Bellagio to see the fountain.  We saw several other cool hotels on the way.

The fountain was very fascinating, and we ended up seeing it go off several times while we waited for our Uber back to the Rio.  I attempted to upload a video here, but it didn't work, so here's a link to my FB page where I posted it, in case you'd like to see.

Once we returned to the Rio, the youngin's went to go get some dinner.  I went to my room for a muscle relaxer, a hot shower, and bed.  It had been a busy day.

*Addendum:  I'm told, by Melody, that the tattoo shop where we got ours done is owned by a guy who has a "Counting Cars show" on the History Channel.  I'm guessing that means it or he is famous!  Cool!

Viva Las Vegas!

Sunday, I and a coworker (Holly) at Berry flew to Las Vegas for a conference - similar to the conference I attended back in March. Somehow, when I was looking at the flight itinerary, I forgot/ignored the time difference, so what appeared to be a short two hours from Chicago to Vegas was, in fact, a four hour flight. You know me, long legs, bad knees, so I had picked an aisle seat and the leg rooom wasn’t too bad. But there was this older lady sitting in the middle seat beside me, and her hubs was in the aisle seat across from me. I stupidly changed seats with him - dumbest thing ever! I swear it had two feet less leg room than the other one (exaggerate much?), but still, very cramped. And the couple beside me drank like fishes and, when they weren’t getting frisky with each other, they were wanting out to go wee. Sigh.

We arrived at LV about 7:30 pm. Getting the luggage took forever, and then finding the place where we were supposed to meet our Uber driver took some time, so we got to the Rio about 9-ish. Between being hot and tired and all the lights and noise, I was exhausted. So upon getting to my room, I took a quick shower and dropped into bed, asleep within seconds.

Of course, the mass shooting happened that evening, not too far from the Rio.. I was on the 10th floor and slept through it, but Holly, on the 15th floor, but on the side facing the Mandalay Bay, got to see and hear all the lights and sirens.

The first I knew about it was Monday morning when I nabbed my phone and saw these texts from people wanting to make sure I was ok. The best/oddest one being “I know you weren’t at the concert, but are you ok?” Finally, I made it thru the list to the first one where Holly had texted me about it. Of course, FB was filled with it.

My body, being on CDT, was up really early, so I had plenty of time before meeting up with Holly to watch the news and just get bummed. I was sitting there on the couch thinking, “I want to go home... Don’t want to be here.” But fortunately, seeing Holly made me feel better. It’s still rather nerve-racking that you can go to some silly concert and never come home.

About 10-ish, we managed to find breakfast, at Hash House a Go-Go. I got the French Toast, (been on a French Toast kick lately) with bacon and scrambled eggs. WAY too much food, but it was very good. Holly and I sat there over our bacon and got to know each other.

I have to preface this by pointing out that prior to our flight from Evansville, we’d spent all of 15 minutes in each other’s presence. Being an introvert, I don’t open up to strangers very easily/quickly, but one day, while IM’ing back and forth regarding the conference, she mentioned booking flights so we flew together and I said, well, we can fly out together, but I’m planning on staying for a couple extra days. We chatted a little more, and then I found myself saying, “you’d be welcome to stay and see Vegas with me.” Again, I knew nothing about her... she could have been a serial killer (too soon?) or even worse, Canadian! (Inside joke there, no offense to Canadians... may need to move up there at some point.)

But back to our bonding over bacon (bacon and cheese, brings the world together), I just felt like I’d known her forever. One thing about this woman, is a world class haggler. For example, when we checked in, she was offered the ability to waive housekeeping in exchange for a $50 credit good at any restaurant in the hotel. I was not. But again, I was too tired to do anything about it, Monday morning we went to the front desk to inquire and were told that you had to do it when checking in. We pointed out that it wasn’t offered, and they shrugged. This is the point where I would have wandered off muttering to myself. Not Holly, she ended up talking to a couple of people, but she got me this waiver/credit thing! There’s another couple of examples, but I may cover them later on.

After breakfast, we checked out a slot machine, I lost $10, like super fast. We roamed around some, but then shortly it was almost time to start getting ready for the classes we’d signed up for that started at 2pm. We trekked the half mile back to our rooms and then back. We still had a couple of minutes, so I slipped another $5 into a machine and won $50!! Now, I realized I’d spent $15 for this $50, so I really only won $35, but I was perfectly happy and stopped there.

After sitting in a meat locker, er.. attending our 4 hour classes, we met up with the third member of our team, Shannon, who flew in from Charlotte Monday afternoon. Personally, I don’t know if I’d have flown into a city the day after there was a mass shooting in it, but she did.

It had been a long 24 hours for all of us, so we dumped our stuff in our room and then went to the 50th floor to the Voodoo Restaurant for some steak. I had a filet and it was THE best hunk of beef I’ve ever eaten... and my mac and cheese, was made with truffle oil - it was divine. The grand total of this meal, including tip, was over $400 for the three of us. I’m pretty sure it’s the most expensive meal I’ve ever eaten, but totally worth it!

After the meal, we went out on the balcony to see the view, at night, and it was wonderful. 

Matt, our account rep from the software company, Conga, was planning on taking us to see Love, the Cirque de Soleil show set to Beatles music, Monday evening at the 9:30 p show. But due to the massacre, the show was cancelled, out of respect, I suppose. So, since her tum was fully satisfied with beef and comfort mac and cheese, Rose, whose body said it was 10:30 pm, went to bed..

A New Hope? - Episode IV

As I’m preparing to leave for Las Vegas, I occurs to me that I haven’t wrapped up the South Carolina trip.  I will attempt to do so here.

When last we met, you’ll recall that Mom and I had found Priscilla Cusack’s obituary, but we still needed to prove that the Priscilla Cusack who died in Alabama in 1836 was the same Priscilla Hollis who didn’t die in So. Carolina in 1805.

The obvious prize would be a marriage record between Priscilla Knighton Hollis and Thomas Cusack, but Mom had also seen evidence of a court record where Priscilla Cusack petitioned the court for Thomas Cusack to become the official guardian of her minor children by Berry Hollis.  Either document would tickle us pink.

After a lovely breakfast at Holly’s house, we set out. Now, So. Carolina isn’t all that big, and it appears that we had to go through Columbia to get anywhere we planned on going that day.  As it turned out, we went through Columbia twice that day.... just keep that in mind.

Our first destination was Camden County, because the guardianship document was from the Camden District Court of Equity - neither the Camden District (which was made of up several of today’s counties) nor the Court of Equity (now it’s either criminal or civil, basically) exist today, so that was the first hurdle.

Mom had read that most counties in So. Carolina have an Archives where she figured the really old stuff might be, so we found Camden County’s Archives first. The very nice gentleman there was very helpful, but yet totally not... he advised us that So. Carolina didn't officially start keeping marriage records until 1913 or something, so the only way we’d find any marriage records would be IF someone HAPPENED to go to the courthouse (and why would you if you didn't have to) and swore out an affidavit of marriage.  And either way, those records would be at the courthouse.  Otherwise, they’d be in the State Archives in Columbia.

So we went to the courthouse.  Again, totally amazed by the lack of security at these courthouses.  Having been told that marriage records were a non-starter, we pinned our hopes on the guardianship papers.  We told the lady behind the counter that we were looking for REALLY old guardianship papers.  She said that you had to have a judge’s ok before looking at them.  I asked, “even if everyone involved is DEAD?!”  She said yes, but sent us to talk to ... I don’t recall, let’s call her Sharon.

We told Sharon what we wanted, and she just shook her head... meaning we didn’t have to have a judge’s ok to see those type of records.  But likewise, they didn’t have those records.  They were probably in the State Archive in Columbia.  But she suggested trying Fulton County - which was part of the Camden District.

We hit the Sonic (thank you Sonic app) and hit the road for Fulton.  We stopped at the Courthouse, and was directed to another place.  We went there to be told by the woman behind the counter that “they” didn’t do guardianship before 1973.  Just to be sure, I repeated what she’d said, in question form... “The State of So Carolina didn’t file guardianship before 1973?!”  To which she shook her head and said , “No, ma’am.”

After the door shut behind us, I told Mom that I had two words to say about that.  “Bull Shit.”  I may look like a boob, but I’m actually quite intelligent and I’ve spent more time in courthouses than O.J. Simpson in my 27 years as a paralegal.  I’m not buying it.

So we went across the street to the county library where a very lovely person assisted us, frankly she seemed almost desperate to help us, I don’t think she gets many people coming to her for more than access to the internet these days.  She agreed that probably what all we wanted would be at the State Archives in Columbia, but she helped us with what she could.

Long story short, we found nothing, learned that odds of marriage licenses are nil.  We didn’t have the time to stop at the State Archives in Columbia, so as we drove thru there to our next stop for the evening, we decided that since Holly only lives about an hour away from Columbia, we’d let her go do some visiting at the State Archives!

We spent the night in Spartanburg, SC and then the next day, drove home.  Hopes still high, but slightly diminished.

The Weekend in Augusta/North Augusta, GA/SC

So Holly and Tom moved from Indy to North Augusta earlier this year and Mom has been whining about wanting to go see them and their new home.  The woman even threatened to take Greyhound, by herself!!  Like I was going to allow that.  Silly rabbit...

Saturday was a beautiful, if warmish, day.  And we all packed up in the Burns-mobile to tour the sites.  We soon found ourselves in Augusta - Holly had plans for us to take a boat tour of the Augusta Canal.  After being reassured that it was NOT a three-hour tour, Gnarley agreed to get on the boat.  (He watches far too much TV.)  It was a Civil War canal tour, so it was lovely AND edu-ma-cational!  We saw sites, and both flora and fauna... and some of the fauna was busy working creating more fauna, if you get my drift.  (Like to keep the blog PG for the kiddies, you know.)








 







Gnarley enjoyed the trip, and the attention.  He was rather bummed, though, that we hadn't packed his fishing rod.   

Sunday, after church, we drove to the State Capital to see the statue of Wade Hampton, Confederate General.  As possibly most of you know, my father, Wade,'s middle name was Hampton.  Legend has it that by the time she had the 9th child (dad), Granny Barger allowed the older girls to name him... AND it was about then that the book Gone With the Wind had come out.  Now why they named Dad after the only child from Scarlett O'Hara's ill-fated first marriage, I don't know.  But hey, they could have named him Rhett Butler Barger!

Lunch was to be had at a Ramen Noodle restaurant.  I was rather disappointed to discover that they didn't use the little 10 for a $1 packages of ramen noodles in their food, but it was pretty good.  Even Mom got the hang of eating with chopsticks.

After a short nap, everyone piled back into the Burns-mobile for ice cream.  One the way, Gnarley saw another of his heroes.  James Brown (Hot tub!).  Gnarley was embarrassed that he wasn't wearing his cape, but got a picture with him anyway.

On the way back from ice cream, a short side trek to the Wade Hampton Veterans Park in North Augusta was called for... had to walk off that ice cream you know.

Tomorrow, Mom and I will leave Chez Burns and return to our trek to find more information on Priscilla and company.  Bet you thought we'd forgot about them, eh?  G'night all...

The Gnome Wars - Episode III.V

Much like the Star Wars saga, where the sections are divided off into sets of three movies, it would appear that Mom and my travels may have the same scheme.  Ignoring the fact that the second set of three "good" movies actually came out before the first set of three "crappy" movies came out,... the last three posts Alabama trilogy.  We have to wait, not 30 years, but still... for the rest of the story, i.e., thus begins the South Carolina trilogy.  This analogy begs the question of who am I in these movies, as only the stupid droids, Anakin/Darth (spoiler!), Yoda, and Obi Wan are in both sets...  I'm going to say I'm Obi Wan and just hope that I don't get killed (only to become stronger) in the first episode.  Here goes.

Gnarley had a lot of fun going to Alabama and that was in spite of the fact that he had to stay in the car most of the time.  First there was the rain - he didn't want to get his socks muddy; and second, he seemed to think that the security in the courthouses might catch him... mumbling something about a warrant and unpaid parking tickets.  He did get to enjoy the fun of a road trip with me and Mom and eating out a lot.

He even enjoyed the toy from my kid's meal at, you guessed it, Sonic!  I did NOT volunteer to share my tots, however.  (grumble..)

I know, you're saying, "To heck with Alabama, that's history!  I thought this was about South Carolina!"  Well, it is, but you know I like to fill in a little background.  Plus there was not quite, but almost two weeks of actual life that had to take place before we repacked our bags, got another cat-sitter to agree to come feed the livestock, and head off again.



Gnarley didn't seem to think that any of that was important and as soon as he got home, he repacked clean socks in his suitcase and stood sentinel at the elevator door.



Neither Mom nor I had the heart to tell him how long he would have to wait.



I'm thinking this entry is quickly becoming the Clone Wars of my Stars Wars analogy... the time between trilogies.

So on that note, Samantha is programmed.  I have downloaded the Sonic app for my phone, so when Mom has a craving, we can see where the nearest one is without depending on the Sonic being listed on the Food signs on the interstate.

Friday Morning - circa 7:30 a.m.  We set off in Baby Blue and head south.  Samantha said I that barring potty/gas/food breaks, it would take 8 1/2 hours to get to Holly and Tom's house in North Augusta, SC.  Of course she had us going via Atlanta, and Rose would rather not venture into that quagmire; so we headed east from Nashville towards Knoxville.  It took Samantha almost 100 miles to succumb to the inevitable and realizing we were NOT going back to Nashville!

Thirteen hours later, after roaming through some beautiful scenery, we finally arrived at Holly's house.  Dog weary...  Upon arrival, Gnarley immediately picked up his friendship with Gnoah.






Gnoah, being a bookish type, shared a bedtime story with Gnarley. 

Soon it was bedtime.  After the long trip and time zone change, Gnarley was soon fast asleep.  We had big plans for the next day!

So When DID She Die??

Another goal of the Alabama trip, was to find proof of someone's death date.  Again, a little background is needed....

A few years ago, I convinced Mom to do the paperwork necessary to get me into the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution), as I'd discovered we have several ancestors who served in the Revolution one way or the other.  And she did.  So Mom, Ho, Ha, me, and my neice Ho2.0 are all members now.  Now, I have an admittedly addictive personality, I like to collect things, so I felt the urge to attach myself to the other patriots.  Mom did the paperwork for a dude on her side of the family, but turns out there are several on Dad's side too!  Long story short, we've been working on adding some of the, I think there are potentially 8, other lines I can join (like 4 or 5 for Mom).

Bear with me now, we're getting to the meat of the second why for this whole trip.  Mom has an ancestress named Priscilla Hollis.  Now someone else has previously joined the DAR and Priscilla is one of their peeps too.  Mom, in the course of preparing her application to attach onto that particular patriot, noticed that the DAR (per this other person's application) shows that Priscilla died in 1804-ish (shortly after her hubs, our ancestor, died). 

Now, at this point in the story, I'm like "yeah, so?"  Well, Mom says Priscilla died in 1836, in Alabama, after remarrying and she wants to be able to put the correct info in her application instead of "me, too'ing" the wrong info.

Obviously, I've not drunk enough of the Kool-Aid, and pointed out that Priscilla isn't the Patriot, in fact, I think she's just the wife of a guy in the ancestral line.  Nevertheless, she persisted.

As I said, Hollis family lore has it that Priscilla and hubs #2 (Thomas) got married in South Carolina, obviously after hubs #1 died.  They had a son, and at some point moved to Alabama, where she died a week after their son.  Somewhere along the line, Mom discovered that the
re is supposedly an obituary for Priscilla in the West Alabamian (a newspaper).  Armed with this info, we headed south from Hamilton, AL, with our ultimate destination being Sumter County - however, along the way, we had a couple of courthouses and libraries to stop at to see if would find this obituary.

First, I apologize, I'm writing this a week after the events, so I don't quite remember the names of all the towns/counties, but I will attempt to otherwise accurately report our escapades.  Additionally, I must say that you couldn't really get to one place from the other easily - it involved several county roads which were long and twisty, with some thrill-hills thrown in.  But it was a beautiful day and we were game.

After driving some, we arrived in Pickens County, in the town of Carrollton. (FYI, I've Googled a map of AL to assist here).  Mom had some reason to think that the West Alabamian was a Pickens County based newspaper.  And whatever her sources were led her to believe that old issues could be found in the courthouse.  We arrive, gather all of our research accoutrements, and go inside where a very nice man sees us, looking like we have no clue what we're doing, and he offers to help us.  Mom explains that supposedly, somewhere in this building are issues of the West Alabamian going back to the 1870's.  (I realize you're asking, but didn't Priscilla supposedly die in 1836?, and yes.  But I think Mom's thoughts were that we'd find an actual death record for her in the county where she supposedly died.  Meanwhile, if the WA went back to the 1830's, then maybe she could find an obit for Derrill Upright Hollis (see last episode).

The kind gentleman tells us, "Oh, no.. not here.  You'd want to go to the Library in Aliceville, they have all the old issues there.  Or, maybe in the Probate Judge's office across the street, but I KNOW the Library in Aliceville has all the old issues, because I've done research in them."

So, we trotted back to the car, discussing whether to try the Probate Judge's office, which was a maybe, or head to Aliceville, which was a definite.  We hit the road for Aliceville.  And had lunch.  Where we asked some guys at the table next to us where the library was.  Of course, they weren't from Aliceville, so they didn't know.  Sigh.  

Don't worry, Siri got us to the Library and when we inquired about the papers, the woman behind the counter had no clue (literally and figuratively) but she helped us investigate.  Turns out the library had every year of the West Alabamian on microfilm EXCEPT the years 1870 and 1871.  She voluntarily called another library in the county only to be told by that person, that the best place would be, you guessed it, the Probate Judge's office in Pickens County.  Sigh.  

Fortunately, it's a good road and a beautiful day, so we drove back to Pickens County, where we had to stand in THE slowest line ever.  See in Pickens County, AL, the Probate Judge's office is also the BMV!  I kid you not, we were in line a good 10 minutes waiting for the two people who were being served when we walked into the room to be finished!  Argh!  Finally, we were able to inquire.  The woman took us to a room giant bound volumes of actual old newspapers - it seems the newspaper itself produced these volumes for the Court.  Very nice.  EXCEPT (together everybody..) the Courthouse burned in 1876.  So nothing older than 1872, newspaper-wise.  Sigh.

At this point, I'm bummed.  Why does Mom do this?  Where's the thrill of discovery?

We drove on down to our ultimate destination, which was Sumter County, the county where Priscilla (you forgot her, didn't you?) and hubs #2 lived.  Mom said the the Courthouse burned, but not the Probate Judge's office, so she hoped there might be some records.  We got to the Probate Judge's office at 3:25 pm hoping that they were open until 5.  We were told that they didn't have any death records, but they did have some old newspapers.  Oh, and the office closes at 4pm.  Sigh.

Mom said that Priscilla died in 1836, and Praise God!! the newspapers went back to 1836!  So I started at the beginning and Mom at the end (of 1836)... when inspiration hit Mom that we should log into her Ancestry account to find out Priscilla's actual death date.  Thank God I had the app on my phone.  I logged in and ... she died in early October.  

As we both stand neck and neck, pouring over the ooh so tiny print in these ooh so crumbly old newspapers, our hearts were pounding.  Finally, BAM! I see this tiny little obit.  I all but ran screaming "We found it!!" to the woman who was helping us.  Ok, I got my thrill of discovery.  So, incredibly long story short, Priscilla died in 1836, and we have proof!  Now the only remaining hurdle to Mom correcting the DAR's record is proving that the Priscilla Hollis they say died in So. Carolina in 1804 is, in fact, the same Priscilla Cusack that died in Alabama in 1836.  Fortunately, I still have vacation days to burn, so it looks like we be South Carolina bound!

- To Be Continued - 

Yet Another Vacation Spent Roaming Around Cemeteries!

Last episode Mom, Gnarley, and I found our way to Alabama in search of Sonics and dead ancestors.  So how did that go?  Well first, some background! 

See, Mom's been doing genealogy for many moons, since she was preggers with yours truly.  As I have whined before, when I was growing up, rare was the vacation that didn't involve a cemetery, a courthouse, or trespassing on strangers' property to see where an ancestor used to live. 

One of the goals for the trip was to find the grave of an ancestress, Mary Elizabeth Hollis, who obviously existed, since we are here, but we can't find any proof.  Family lore has it that she died and was buried in the cemetery at the Macedonian such and such Church cemetery.  So the plan was to go in the afternoon, after spending the morning in the courthouse.  But according to the weather channel, remnants of Harvey were supposed to come into western Alabama in the afternoon, so I told Mom that we needed to switch the plans.

After breakfast, we hit McD's for some tea and then drove 20 minutes to Sulligent,  AL.  If memory serves, this is where my great grandmother met my great grandfather - he was working on the railroad ("all the live long day!!!...).  So here's a pic of the train depot.

Going through town, we found our way to the Macedonian such and such Church cemetery.  We traipsed around over the bumpy terrain, doing our best to read really old tombstones.  There were tons with broken headstones, or totally illegible stones, so we can't say that Mary Elizabeth wasn't there, but we did not find her stone.  We did find the stone for David H. Hollis, not a direct ancestor, but a twig off the same limb of the family tree - per Mom, his father-in-law went nuts and killed him. She couldn't (or should I say "wouldn't"?) give me any more details of the crime.  Hmm...

So now, Mary Elizabeth's widower, Derrill Upright Hollis, was buried in the Hollis cemetery on what used to be part of his 1,500 acres of property.  Mom and Dad had been to see it, but Mom thought I should see it.  So, using her memory, we drove around trying to find it.  We found this sign,

but no cemetery.

Mom was bummed, and it was starting to sprinkle.  So we drove around Sulligent to locate the town library, so Mom could see if there was any records that might help us prove 1) that Mary Elizabeth wasn't a pigment of our imagination; and B) where the Hollis cemetery was.  We rummaged around in their "genealogy" section - or maybe it was their genealogy "section", that's better, because it wasn't very big.  We did not find anything, but when the woman behind the counter stopped gossiping with another lady who obviously wasn't very busy, we approached her to inquire about the Hollis cemetery.

While she is attempting to help us solve the mystery, a black gentleman came in and she said, "well, this is the man to ask, he's Somethingorother Hollis!"  So the four of us continued to work on the mystery until the light bulb appeared over the guy's head and he's like "Oh, yeah!  I know where that is!"  And he gave us directions.

Before trekking out, Indiana Jones style, it was lunch time, and our make your own waffles were no longer holding down the fort energy-wise, so we stopped at the BBQ Hut - we'd passed it before and it sounded good, but now, it is pouring rain, and we could see people wading through the raindrops to go get it, and decided that was a good recommendation.  We managed to get thoroughly soaked, but enjoyed the BBQ.

Having refilled the fuel tank, so to speak, we set out.  But keep in mind that it is pouring rain, and while I was already wet, neither of us wanted to get wetter.  We did find the cemetery but it was no longer the well kept jewel that Mom remembered seeing before.  We did trespass onto someone's property, but decided to be happy with just a picture.  If you look really close, you can see tombstones in there.  One of them is Derrill Upright Hollis.

We decided to swim back to Hamilton, and spend the afternoon in the courthouse.  We were shot down at every turn because all the info we were looking for was from before one of the various times the courthouse burned in late 1800's!  

As the afternoon drew to a close, we Googled looking for someplace good to eat.  The background here being that Dad was of the opinion that there was no place good to eat in Alabama.  After reading the online menus and reviews (some of which were laugh out loud funny), we decided upon O'Bryan's Family Steakhouse because we were in the mood for an actual meal.

We were seated, waffled our way through ordering, and Mom got up to go fix her plate at the salad bar.  That's when one of the waitresses came frantically to the table telling me that she was sorry, but they were going to have to close.  WHAT?  Oh, don't worry, they could cook our food, but would have to give it to us in a to go box.  WHY?  Because of that..  and she pointed at the tv on the wall in the corner.  The radar being showed was red.  So I'm like, "a storm?"  No, a tornado... and the manager isn't here, and they left it to us whether or not to stay open.  Right, you leave the decision whether or not to stay open up to a bunch of teenagers?  

So, a couple of things, 1) the time it took for them to cook our food and bring it to us in to go containers, the tornado was long gone; B) the county we were sitting in, was long and skinny, we were sitting in the top part and the tornado was in the bottom part and moving north east.  The restaurant was never in danger; and finally, when we did get back to the hotel, they hadn't given us any utensils with our carry out.   After that experience, I don't think Dad would have changed his mind about Alabama cuisine.

Staff tuned for our next episode "So When DID She Die?!"