Our trip to Quincy

We traveled to Jo's home town last week to attend her sister's burial.  The weather made it a bit of a challenge to get there for everyone since the Midwest had to be hit by a major snowstorm at the same time.  The service and funeral were nicely done with eulogies provided by her husband, Mike, one of her son's, James, and Jo.  Each eulogy did a wonderful job of capturing the feelings that each had for their wife/mother/sister along with those things that made Mary so special. Mary now rests next to her parents and has her favorite pet, Woody, with her and is probably already providing advice to those in heaven.

While we were in Quincy we had the opportunity, along with various family members, to visit some of the Steinkamp family's favorite haunts.  This included dinner at Elder's where they spent many an evening with their parents and Maid Rite for lunch.  For those uninitiated, Maid Rite is essentially cooked, seasoned, crumbled hamburger on a bun.  The Quincy natives love it and while it was ok, I struggled to find the deep love that others were obviously having for this sandwich. 

The family also had the opportunity to catch up with their cousins from the area since it isn't too often the entire Steinkamp clan from Jo's side of the family descends on Quincy any more.  The other interesting occurrence, for me, was seeing the next generation starting to fill the roles that Jo, her siblings, and spouses used to have - playing with their nieces and nephews, making meal decisions, and organizing who is going where, when. 

We drove home on Friday and spent the weekend hibernating since we were both under the weather a bit.  I picked up a cold - I'm claiming it was from Jo, and since she doesn't write in this blog, I can stick her with being the cause - and Jo had some mild stomach distress (probably from one of the meals and the stress of last week).  So neither of us had a lot of energy to do much.  We did manage a short walk since the weather was sunny even though we are covered with snow.

Speaking of snow, we already have piles of it (there are 5 foot high piles in some places where the configuration of my driveway forces me to move the snow - my snow blower almost can't shoot over it anymore) and more is forecast for tomorrow.  As is usual this time of the year, I'm ready to enjoy warmer temperatures and way less snow.