After we left The Old Brick Hotel in New Castle, we decided to walk the block of Main Street to see what there was to see.
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| This used to be a bank building when I was writing over there. |
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| The Craig County Courthouse from the front. |
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| Main Street. It looked like someone had spruced up the buildings with fresh paint. |
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| They have a brand-new farmers market. |
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| It looks really nice and should be a great addition to the community. |
We walked back toward the car, and I said, "Let's go in here." The shop was called The Emporium, and it was set up kind of as an old-fashioned grocery and had a small bookstore in the rear.
I saw a man enter just after us and I thought he looked familiar, but I had written over there for a long time and many people would look familiar. I was looking around up at the front when I heard someone say my last name out loud.
My husband responded, "Well, how are you!"
I went back to discover, to my surprise, a former firefighter who used to work with my husband. He is also my aunt's ex-husband's brother, making him my cousin's uncle. So family. Sort of.
We did not go to New Castle expecting to run into anyone we knew. To run into someone we considered extended family was incredibly unexpected. We hadn't seen this long-distance relative since 2017 and hadn't had much of a chance to speak then as we were at a concert.
We spent a pleasant 15 minutes or so catching up on family news.
Definitely a nice surprise. Given the earlier surprise of finding paperwork that dealt with my father's family in a county that was not known for that family, (plus seeing a camel), we felt like this afternoon drive had a bit of cosmic coincidence going on with it.
Then we drove around the town some more and saw a cemetery that I couldn't recall seeing before:
I really liked the angel on top. I love old cemeteries anyway; they give off such a cool vibe. They don't make statues like that in new cemeteries.
And that was the end of our adventure. We really should get out of the house more often.
The Courthouse photo could be a postcard. Your run-in got me thinking: I haven't seen my uncle's ex-wife's brother since I was in high school, and still living in a small town. Since my mom and uncle died, I have no idea what happened to that family ... or my cousin, for that matter. It would be nice to run into them and catch up. I'm glad you had that encounter.
ReplyDeleteI like Cemetaries. I will be buried at the same place as my parents, grandparents and great grandparents. Nice that you ran into a family member!
ReplyDeleteI'm with you about the vibe of old cemeteries.
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