Maryland February 2012

We spent some time in Maryland last month, it was a short trip, the latter part of a trip to attend my mother's funeral. The funeral was more of a memorial service, and it was held in Pennsylvania. The next day we headed out to Maryland to spend a few days before heading home.

Driving through the Pennsylvania countryside was so nice, even in winter it's beautiful, and I really miss all the trees and the beautiful houses. The day itself was sunny with bright blue skies. We planned the drive to go past the Washington DC temple, on the way to our hotel in Columbia. It was so exciting to round the bend just before the turnoff to go to the temple, and as you get past the trees the temple appears gleaming in the sunlight. It's so gorgeous, magical, and ethereal. It's hard to believe we were married there.

We left the temple behind and went to the hotel, the Sheraton, situated by a small lake. After getting settled we headed out for a walk on the footpath that almost encircles the lake.

The next day was rainy. I had forgotten what it was like in Maryland when it would rain. In Utah it comes and goes, only occasionally will it rain all day long, but, in Maryland it gets absolutely water logged. Still, we were determined to spend some time on the temple grounds so we drove back into Washington DC, and found our way to the temple visitors center parking lot. There were practically no visitors due to the weather and it being a Thursday morning, so it was nice and quiet. We spoke with the sister missionary inside that we discovered was from Utah. We wanted directions to the LDS bookstore in the area hoping to get a unique temple portrait, so she directed us to the older couple that were running the front desk. After he found out that we were from Utah, and chatting a bit about that, we told him that we had been married in the DC temple 29 years ago, and he was surprised that we would travel so far when there are temples in Utah. We explained that we had been living in Minnesota at the time, where Tim was born and raised, and he said he was from Minnesota too, a little town called Dalbo. Well, were we surprised at that, Tim's Anderson side of the family were one of the founding families of Dalbo.

You can imagine the lengthy chat, and I do mean lengthy chat they had.

After they had covered most of the history of Dalbo, we headed outside to walk around the temple gardens and take some pictures. It's a bit of a tradition to have our picture taken by the fountain in front of the temple. With the rain, and a bit of wind it wasnt' easy, but, we mostly managed. Finally we asked a lady that was going into the temple to take a couple of pictures of us. Then we walked the gardens, even in the cold rain it was so nice. We took some more pictures, and then drove to the little bookstore nearby. There was one temple picture I wanted, but, had no way to transport it, so I'll just order it online.

We picked up some gifts for the kids, and then back to Columbia to regroup. On the way we decided to have lunch before going back to the hotel, and I suggested we find the restaurant where I used to work as a hostess back in 1980 , the Crab Shanty. I wasn't sure it was even still there, but there it was, and it looked almost the same. The inside was a little different but still felt the way it did back then. The food was great.

After lunch we drove up the road to see where my grandparents used to live. The old house looked pretty much the same, except that all the trees and shrubs were gone and the house was painted yellow. So were the house next door and my Aunt Sophies house across the street. None of the other houses in the area were painted, and since they were red brick it made no sense to me. Whoever bought them must have terrible taste. Still, it brought back so many memories to see the old house. It looked smaller somehow, even the driveway seemed shorter, but, I know it wasn't.

More to come.......