Bangkok, Baby!

Mom flew in from Rangoon and we tooled around Bangkok together after breakfast and a brief review of the last few days.

Exploring in "Krungthep" (The City of Angels). My favorite Thai dish: Somtam and Sticky Rice. Its to die for!
Later that day, fresh coconut juice. Afterwards I scraped the soft flesh out with a spoon and ate it.
Stoic buddhas.
Beside Wat Arun, the "Temple of the Dawn".
A storm brewing over the Chao Phraya River during the boat ride downstream.
Little Lotus

Patpong: Bangkok's red-light district. Three good words every astute mencsh should know in Bangkok: "Mai Ow Kap".

The Royal Palace

Take-out Thai fried rice for dinner.

And all too soon, it was over. Time to go back to Lahore. R&R is done. It was a long flight.

A Diamond in Calcutta

After 3, or was it 4 days of traveling, I made it to Calcutta. I met an interesting couple on the plane who I'd heard of, and they had heard of me. We were all surprised to see each other.

Strangers not-withstanding, I arrived in Calcutta. Sans Suitcases. AGAIN!

A certain special someone was there to meet me. I think she liked the Thai orchids I brought.She appreciated the care package from her home which I brought for her. M works at an orphanage in the Calcutta area.
A day around Calcutta: here on the upper floor of the Victoria Memorial, above.

A human-powered rickshaw.
M shopping in the nearby market for vegetables for the staff.
Victoria Memorial by night after the sound and light show.

A beautiful sunset on Friday evening.

M getting ready to put one of the orphan girls to bed.

It was a special weekend to visit with her again. M is truely one-in-a-million. Actually, one-in-a-billion. She is a real gem. A diamond.

Unfortunately, time just flew by, and it was time to return to Lahore.

The long way around the world

This was the long way around the world: Texas-MEM-ORD-CPH-BKK-CCU.

Airline food on Thai.
The 747 in Copenhagen Airport on the longest day of the year.
Lunch
Dinner
Another lunch?
Die-had fans watch the World Cup in the Don Muang Airport waiting lounge.

New Hope, TX Homecoming weekend

Lots of good food at the potluck.

Grandpa and his two sisters.

Somebody made a crazy birthday "cake" for Grandpa's 85th birthday.

Cousin Jarrett has done got himself married. He & Julie will be moving to Marietta, Georgia, shortly.

After all the eating and talking, some decided it was a good time to walk and get fresh air.

The old church in New Hope, TX.

Death is just a sleep

Choices, Choices....

Actually, on Saturday afternoon several of us went to a third cemetery, in New Hope, Texas, to see where dearly departed relatives have been laid to rest over the decades. Half the graves in this little cemetery are relatives.
Grandpa's Uncle Andrew almost lived to 100. Grandpa's side seems to have long-living genes.
This little grave marks that of a little boy, and the first one in the cemetery. The family was passing through on a covered wagon in the late 1800s. Sadly, they had to leave their little pride and joy behind, and were probably never able to come back.
Great Grandpa Martin Luther and his wife rest here. He also nearly lived to 100. I saw him on my first visit to Texas 6 years before he died. He married Mollie Jane and adopted her little tots, including my Grandpa, as his own. Her kids needed a father, and his kids had no mother, and the rest is history. They lived happily ever after, and Grandpa and his siblings live to tell the story.This is a strange one: Charles lost his first wife, and married a young girl 40 years his junior: Ada, below. Through some convoluted twist of geanology that only Grandma can figure out and properly explain, Charles was an ancestor on my Grandpa's maternal side, and Ada was a relative on Grandma's side, and little did they know that one of his descendents from his first marriage would marry someone from his second wife Ada's side. Oh, the twists and turns of life!

Though it is somewhat sad to see so many relatives buried in one place, this place is special to me and has a lot of history for my family. I look forward to the resurrection morning when the sound of the trumpet will awake them to everlasting life and we will all be together in that big, never-ending reunion. (1 Th 4:16)

Down the Texan Way

After an apalling hiatus, yours truely has brought photos and an internet connection together once again to release another toe-curling episode of "As the Globe turns".

After a long day driving the oldsters across rrrKansas, we stopped on the Texas state line for lunch. When Grandma saw the prices on the menu, she was horrified and told everyone to stop eating the free nachos, because we would have to find somewhere else to eat. After soothing her frugal heart, we enjoyed a decent if slow Mexican meal, and I picked up the tab. The price for 5 of us? A death-defying $32!

Breakfast at the Cajun Cowboy Inn of east Texas, where the reunion and homecoming events were brewing into an dangerous milleu.

The resident duck and mascot of the Cajun Cowboy Inn. He comes around to the rooms to beg for handouts. When I snapped his picture he waddled off indignantly.
Stopped by the municipal hospital to visit Grandpa's sister, Great Aunt Dorothy who was in to get her ticker rewound. Several aunts met each other in the lobby and insisted on having a photo to commemorate so many big chests in one place. Yes, my clan is a weird one, no doubt about that.
Grandpa and great Aunt Hazel exchange the latest seedy gossip with Aunt Dorothy.
Doctor doolittle came by to spring aunt Dorothy from the hospital. Lets wheel her gurney out and let the party begin!

Rrr-kansas

I'll second that.

Cheesy, but not quite as sinister as Virginia's "Crush Crime" signs.

After picking up the 2 Aunt's at the airport, we stopped for gas and found ourselves in Hope, Arkansas.

A quick swing by Bill Clinton's birthplace, then back on the road to Texas.

Walking in Memphis

Prairie fires in Missouri.

A helpful reminder in downtown Memphis.

During the trip from Michigan to Texas, we spent the night in Memphis. Since they don't drive so well, I spent most of the trip behind the wheel. Grandma can't stand Elvis Presley. To torment Grandma we took her to Graceland, under the pretense of going to Walmart.

Elvis' Graceland home.
Grandpa says "They don't make cars like this anymore." He's got that right.