The working part of the road trip

 

August 20 2023, Sunday

The Bluegrass Festival finished up last night at 10pm; it was a surprisingly entertaining experience for both of us. We both really enjoyed it and hope to attend another one someday. We had prepped the RV for travel on Saturday afternoon and pulled off our site at Tom Johnson CG at 9am.

I had studied potential routes and finally decided to take the I-40 part way to our next destination in Martinsville Virginia. You know we normally avoid interstates especially east of the Mississippi, but there just wasn’t any good alternative. I swear you could be a passenger traveling on any interstate in the eastern half of the country, fall asleep then wake up on an interstate in another state and you wouldn’t know the difference.

Marion NC to Martinsville VA

It was Sunday so at least the road wasn’t congested; we had smooth sailing all the way to our exit onto Hwy 421. This is still mostly limited access with on/off ramps but old school urban expressway. It kind of reminds me of the way I-95 used to be up in New England. It may still be that way; I don’t know I haven’t been up that way in quite a while. Anyhow, we weren’t on 421 all that long before exiting onto Hwy 158 or Reidsville road.

We followed Reidsville Road to Stokesdale were 158 makes a right turn and we stayed straight, the road now being Hwy 68. We drove on it a few miles to Hwy 220/73 which takes us to Martinsville and our usual camping spot, Indian Heritage RV Park.

Sorry, I try not to bore the blog readers with a lot of directions but I wanted to record them for our future use.

The 175 mile (estimated) journey didn’t take long on the lightly traveled Sunday morning and we arrived at Indian Heritage a little after 12 noon. After a quick lunch we drove over to Axton to the Bray family cemetery on Plantation Drive. We had been told one of the fence posts was broken and I wanted to see what materials I would need to repair it.

Afterwards we continued east to Danville Virginia, Millie’s residence during her young married years. Her house is still there, but it’s not the same, you truly can’t go home again. We also drove across town to see the construction site at the old Dan River Mills factory. They have demolished the old brick structures and are doing site work for a Cherokee Indian sponsored Caesars Entertainment owned Casino. Impatient to start the fleecing of the hopeful they are operating a huge tent casino on the site.

Casino in a tent

 

For the life of me I don’t understand why anyone would voluntarily give their hard earned wages to a huge company that controls all the odds and know they will always come out ahead.  And I think deep down the gamblers know they will never see their money again, yet they do it anyhow. I call them the sad and sorrowful because that’s the way they all look in the casino. My Military alumni reunion is held in the Orleans Casino in Las Vegas so I have had ample opportunity to see a smiling face at a slot machine. I have yet to see one. OK, I will now step down off my soapbox!

Back to our Sunday drive, on the way back to Martinsville Millie directed me to the farm she lived on from age 6 to 11. She pointed out where the house and stable and other structures used to be, but it’s all gone now. I don’t know who owns the property now but it appears to be a part of a large corporate farm. Never the less it was interesting because I have heard so many stories of Millie’s early life on a sharecropper tobacco farm. I was so enthused with her homestead tour I forgot to take any pictures.

August 21, 2023 Monday

We purchased the replacement fence post and two sixty pound bags of concrete and stopped at the cemetery monument company before heading over to Axton. More about the monument company in tomorrows details.

The hardest part of the fence repair was digging out the old metal post which had been set in concrete. Those of you who have dug out old fence posts will know and sympathize with our work in what turned out to be an excessively hot day. That done it was a simple task to set the new post and reattach the chain link fencing.

Millie, protected only by a pair of high cuffed leather gloves bravely tackled the poison ivy and all sorts of unknown vegetation that was growing through the back fence. She accomplished this task with a small pruning saw and hand clippers. I had only brought the garden tools in case I had to cut small roots in my digging tasks. Even though she was ill equipped she soldiered on and cleaned the length of the back fence.

Joe Bray's old and new markers

The other job for the day was to dig a small rectangular hole in the hard red Virginia dirt. We would be setting a small granite marker for Joe Bray today. I then leveled a wooden form before installing the flat marker in a bed of concrete. 

Joe Bray passed in June 1 2002 at the age of 81 and is buried between his grand-father and his mother. For some reason unknown to us his immediate family marked his grave with a small natural rock. There is no inscription on it. 

As one of the elders who look after the cemetery, Millie has taken it upon herself to make sure all the graves are marked. The marker for Joe Bray is the last unmarked grave that we know of.

To Millie this simple family cemetery is more than just another fenced plot of land on a lonely country road. This is family heritage; it is the history of several generations of the John Bray family. This is their last home on earth. 

PS: As we were preparing to leave after our hard days work, we were reluctant to sit in the upholstered seats when we realized we were both ringing wet from sweat. I started the truck and was shocked to see the dash board thermometer registering the outside temperature at 106 degrees.

August 22 2023 Tuesday

I was out the door and one my way to the cemetery at 6 am this morning. I had to fill and pack dirt on the newly set post and the grave marker, booth of which I installed yesterday. I was done and on my way back to the RV at 8 am. 

At 11:30 Millie and I traveled back to the cemetery where we met her two sisters and the monument men. The occasion was Millie and Betty had purchased headstones from Ridgeway Memorial Service and they were coming to set them in place today. Also on hand was Lucille’s granddaughter Brittany and great granddaughter Aubrey and Betty’s daughter Cathleen.

Setting Millie's stone

Betty, Millie, Lucille

Other than the fact that Lucille is still not well, it was a happy group and it was a great opportunity for the three sisters to get together. I don’t think the graveyard crew expected a group of lady sidewalk superintendents, but they really just wanted to make sure the stones were put in the right place. As a amateur graveyard worker I had a few questions for monument men which they happily answered. Other than it got hot again with no breeze, it was a pleasant gathering.

Millie and Betty inspecting their monuments

Sidewalk supervision

 

After the graves session we all drove to a local Restaurant called Clearance’s for a meal and more fellowship. All too soon, The Greensboro ladies went south, the Konorock ladies went west and Millie and I returned to the RV in Martinsville

In the late afternoon we drove to the other side of town to Millie’s niece Jennifer’s home to see her new grandbaby. We had a pleasant visit with them, Millie got to hold the new baby and we met Blair’s husband Skyler for the first time, caught on family news, spoke briefly with Jennifer’s son Luke, who just crossed the continental United States on an electric unicycle, yes you read that right.

Millie and baby Ridge

I am cutting this post off here; I want to get it online tonight because we are moving west into a no cell signal zone for the next 5 days.