Waiting Part 2

 After leaving Hazel's house, we arrived in Hoopa, California on the Trinity River to stay at another cousin's home.

Day 1 cemetery clean up.

You can see the Salmon River road and the path up the mountain to the cemetery.  Even though you cannot tell it, there is a steep embankment which is about 15 feet high.   All of that underbrush was cleaned out.

This was all cleared, and the majority of these 3 trees which were down, cut up and loaded for firewood for the winter for the cousin and my parents.  My father would cut the logs and then we would roll them down over the cliff into the ditch, haul them out of the ditch and load them on the truck. 

Day 2 involved more wood cutting, and installing another fence around the area where I cleared to put our headstone.

September 11, 2018 the gentleman showed up to install the stone, with his wife.  The stone was lifted by a small crane to the top of the embankment and placed on a dolly that the installer, his wife, my dad, and I pushed and pulled up the mountain to the spot I had chosen.  

Once it was set I dug the hole to inter  Jeff's ashes.  And I hit a rock!  Not just any old rock.  We are talking pretty major sized piece of stone. After a couple of hours my dad and I got it removed.

As you can see it is only 1/2 the rock.  But the tea jug is a reference to the size.

I then planted a small rose next to the stone.

It starts out yellow, but as it opens it turns kind of pink.  Hopefully the deer will be deterred by the fencing that was erected.

There is a view of the Salmon River.  My great grandparents home was downriver about 6 miles from the cemetery, and my great, great grandparents home was about 4 miles upriver from the cemetery.  In between cousins and siblings lived.  Sadly, almost all of those homes are gone now. 

Here is looking upriver toward what they call Grant's Bluffs.  My great grandfather and his crew built a single lane road into the rock mountainside.

What was kind of interesting is that there were butterflies all over the area where I was working, the not so interesting fact was I got into poison oak, and had an allergic reaction to it...that began a couple of days after all of the cemetery work was done.  But I was still waiting because there was more to be done before Bobbin and I headed back home.