October has been a momentous month in our lives.
50 years ago, the Grateful Dead played their last show before taking a year-long hiatus.
50 years ago, a few days after that show, our daughter was born. We were 17 year old newlyweds and were living in Washington state, almost 2000 miles from home.
And in early November 1974, my childhood best friend died in a tragic car wreck.
And then life happened.
This year was, in a bittersweet sense, also momentous.
The sweet part was we got to celebrate our daughter’s birthday, in person. That was wonderful! As was seeing good friends after a long absence.
But a few days before we left to go visit Lisa, our cousin Joni passed away. Sheryl was her cousin, but they were like sisters. And since Joni was a few months older, Sheryl knew her her entire life. I’ve known her most of my life as well, and the loss to us and our families is deeply felt.
And then on the way home we heard Phil Lesh, bass player for the Grateful Dead, had died. It didn’t feel like the shockwave of losing Jerry 29 years ago, but his loss is tremendous. We saw him play live somewhere in the range of 2-300 times.
And now, more life will happen.
Here are some photos taken during our trip. They are not fully processed yet, so for now it’s just thumbnails.
First image is the initial 50 cut from 300. The 2nd is the 28 that will go to Flickr after processing. I’ll publish the best 5-9 images in a later post.
Locations include Colorado, Utah, Nevada and Yosemite National Park in California. (You can click each image to see a larger version.)
