One of the reasons for this trip out to Salt Lake is to place my mother's ashes in their final resting place. To that purpose, we've gathered as much of my mom's immediate family as we could together and we took a trip out to the place where she spent much of her time, Lamoille, Nevada. Lamoille is a small ranching community nestled at the base of the Ruby Mountains about 15 miles from Elko. My grandparents bought a house there many years ago and then built a cabin in the canyon about the house and both of my parents spent much of their childhoods in the area. For all of us, the cabin was an especially beautiful and restful place where we spent time on vacations fishing, hiking and playing games. Much of the inspiration for my mom's painting came from the Lamoille Canyon and the wildflowers that filled it.
So, along with my brother, my dad and his wife and my grandmother, Kathy and I traveled out to Lamoille to bury her ashes not far off the trail that she hiked often where one can rest and see the cabin. The picture you see here is the tree under which we buried her ashes. As you might imagine it was a bittersweet trip in some ways and a wonderful one as well.
It's always great to go to the canyon. Many people who have visited have said that the Ruby Mountains and Lamoille Canyon remind then of the Swiss Alps with their souring pinnacles, glacier carved valleys, crystal clear streams and grassy, wildflower meadows. I love the sounds and smells of the canyon and it was wonderful to spend an afternoon with my family enjoying its beauty.
The somewhat sad part was that for my dad and grandmother there were lots of memories but few remaining connections. They both knew all of these people who have died or left. They helped write some of the history of the region and they knew everyone. Most of those people have died or moved on now and so there was a lot of the rest of us having to hear my tell relive memories in sort of a sad way. When added to the difficult task of place my mom's ashes, it made things a little hard.
Still, it was a good trip and it help close a chapter of my life. Each year I'll be able to travel to a place I love and spend some time in remembrance of my mom. I'll smell the pine and sage and "quakies" and hear the whisper of the wind and the rush of the streams and remember the times when my mom took my brother and I hiking up to the glacier along that trail. In time we'll place the ashes of my dad and my grandmother in the same place and their ashes will fertilize the mountain cedar and wildflowers and give back to the place that has given so much to us.
