the short trip to say good-bye

As I mentioned earlier, a couple of weeks ago my grandmother passed away. She was the last grandparent on my side of the family, and the one I knew the best, so it hit me harder than any other before her. I flew out there for the funeral and to spend a day or two with my family. It was really nice being back in Utah. There’s just something about the mountains that I feel very connected to, so it really did feel like I was returning home. Add to that the fact that my brother Russ, whom I hadn’t seen for a few years, and all the rest of my extended family, that I hadn’t seen in even more years, also flew out, and it just really made everything complete.

While there, I had a great time with my camera, and brought home some images that I am really quite happy with. This may be a long post, actually, because of all the pictures I want to put up.

Day one I was apparently either too busy to take pictures or not interested enough in anything to actually get the camera out of the bag. The only shots I really got were from the Kansas City airport in the wee hours of the morning while waiting for my flight and from my dad’s front yard in the late afternoon.

More pictures after the jump. And not many more of them are of the sky, I promise.

Day two was the day of the funeral. There was a viewing held before the funeral. Grandma looked very peaceful in her casket (decorated in blue, her favorite color).

We went to the cemetery after the service and were all very amused to see that someone had put a jack-o-lantern on the base of a flagpole next to Grandma’s plot. It was fully carved and everything. It was clearly appropriate, given that it was actually the day of Halloween (which had prompted at least one family member to suggest that we should have put “costumes optional” on the funeral announcement).

My dad wanted to make sure that we took a picture of all of his kids and grandkids that could make it.

And I made sure to make a couple of images that struck me as beautiful.

After the funeral, we drove back down to Provo to drop off my younger sister. While we were there, we stopped by BYU so that we could hit the student store and also so we could just look around the campus and see how things had changed.

I wanted to try and get a shot of the Maeser building, one of the original buildings, I believe. As I headed that way, I was amazed by how read these bushes were outside the Eyring Science Center.

Behind the Maeser building, I turned around and looked and was struck by my shadow.

On my way back towards the student center, I walked past the testing center and saw the long, sloping walkway that I would frequently use to head up to campus, then went past the Benson Building, with its popular “fish bowl” study room.

I was able to spend a nice little bit of time with our good friends Shaughan and Michael, who we hadn’t seen basically since their wedding reception. Now, I was saying hello to their daughter, Eva. It was wonderful to see them again.

Day three was the day of departure. My brother’s flight left early, so we had to get him to the airport around 9 or so. My flight didn’t leave until 5 that evening, so my dad and I decided to head downtown and hang out for a while. We first hit Temple Square.

It was a lot of fun, walking around and talking about where to shoot the temple from.

The reflecting pool was, of course, lots of fun.

After that, we headed over to the Church Office Building. I had never been in there before, but my dad mentioned that they have an observation deck up top that you can go to, so we went.

On our way back, I stopped to take a few more pictures of the temple.

We ate at the Lion House Pantry (some great food there), then went up to see the state capitol building. I really wanted to get some shots looking up into the dome, but apparently, the building had been closed for a year or more for retrofitting, so this was the best I could get (without all the ugly construction going on around it).

After that, we went down to Pictureline, “the largest and best camera store in the state” (according to one local professional photographer I know), and had an incredible time playing around with checking out some really expensive lenses and camera bodies and talking with one of the sales gals, who was herself from the Los Angeles area (Marina del Rey). I still can’t believe my dad could put up with me as we spent at least an hour there, maybe two, as I geeked out over all the toys there.

We the Gateway Center for Dairy Queen treats, then took off to the airport. Security wasn’t bad, and my plane left on time.

All in all, it was a wonderful little trip to say good-bye to my Grandma.