The famous Spillway, and AshFest '09

Saturday morning dawned at Lake Pymatuning, and we all converged on Chase Drive for a famous Waddell pancake extravaganza. Aunt Laurie promised Allen a train pancake, and shoot if she didn't deliver!

The next logical step was piling everyone into the cars and heading to the Linesville Spillway, "where the ducks walk on the fish's backs." (You may remember, three years ago, when the Crabbes first visited.) This was the place that Mom and Dad had wanted us to see... the reason we'd decided to spread their ashes in the lake here. (No, we did not feed them to the fish!)

Here's a slideshow of the best images (from four different cameras!) from the Spillway:



After a break and some rest (and a trip to Sparkle for some essential supplies), it was time for the main event: AshFest. (Here's what I needed to get at Sparkle... wine, root beer, a cooler, ice, Bugles, french onion dip, bumpy donuts... just some of Mom and Dad's favorite snacks and drinks!)

I also was preparing my remarks for the event... I'm in charge of words, you know. My "eulogy" went a little something like this:

"I guess it's safe to say we're all here because of love. Larry and Betty Lou gave us life and then showed us how to live it: Fueled by curiosity, fun, good humor and love.

We're here in this out-of-the-way place, at the corner of two pink highways, on the crack of the map. Most people would be perfectly happy to live and die and never see a place like this. But Mom and Dad couldn't stand the thought of us missing it.

They're gone now, but we feel them with us every day: In all the little things we do. In their grandkids and great-grandkids. And when we happen upon places like this.

So here is where we leave them, and we hope that, wherever they are, they're laughing their asses off.

Thanks for everything, Mom and Dad."

There we all were, in our rented pontoon boats, in the lee of a nice little island, feeling generally silly and hoping no one could see us... And we opened those boxes that had been on Laurie's shelf for three years... and we scattered the ashes in the water, followed by wine, root beer, spare change, Bugles and wildflowers. And we whooped it up to the strains of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.

And I think they probably were laughing their asses off.

Here's a slideshow of all the best images from AshFest: