After camping last month, Jeff and I both were basically dragging our feet home. We camped about three and half hours away so the drive home felt a little like a mini road trip. Just enough of that open road feeling to tease you, and make you want so much more. I love every little detail about trips in the car. Watching out the window for hours, gas station snacks, and being in new small towns. We haven’t really been anywhere since our fourth annual road trip out west and the urge to just explore something new is strong.
All that to say, we were both not so subtly trying to extend the drive home. We visited a state hospital and it’s cemetery (where I got a creepy photo!), looked for geocaches, and stopped for snacks. There were so many interesting looking little cemeteries along the route but if we’d stopped at them all we might not have ever made it home. One finally caught my eye that I could resist. The sign said “Cherry Hill Cemetery. Rest in Peace” I shouted about how cool it was but denied the need to stop when Jeff asked. I rambled on about it for another minute or so before Jeff asked again “are you sure?” To which I replied “Yeah, maybe you should turn around”
‘Rest in Peace’ is one of those things, similar to skulls, that despite being thought of frequently in correlation with cemeteries isn’t actually seen very often – at least not in this part of the United States. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a single time I’ve seen it in English in a real cemetery. So Cherry Hill Cemetery looked decent from the road but it was the sign that really drew me in. The sun was out in full force and with all the trees the lighting was pretty spotty so I didn’t plan on really taking any photos other than of the sign.
As it would turn out, I hated the photo I got of the sign but ended up getting drawn in to a shady corner where lots of smaller headstones were and the lighting was perfect! Small, old headstones are my favorite, especially when surrounded by slightly overgrown greenery. Even more than that, we had been camping somewhere that had a lot of ferns. On a hike through the ferns the day prior I got to talking about how awesome a cemetery covered in them would be. While this place wasn’t covered, it was kind of funny to find a little area abundant with them after just mentioning that.
While I darted around the cemetery taking photos, Jeff found a geocache so it all worked out wonderfully. I got to photograph a neat little cemetery with ferns, we got to log another cache, and we made it feel a little bit more like we were actually on a trip by checking out somewhere new.
xoxo
Fellow taphophiles, get your fill here.