Let's Call It A Photoessay...

...it sounds so much better than I am too lazy and exhausted to write an actual post.

Growing up as an Army brat, moving around quite a bit, Lyman Run State Park about forty minutes from my grandparents' houses was one of only a few places that was a permanent fixture in my life. I now live a little over an hour from there and it remains a gathering place for my family. It is pretty humble as state parks go--there are certainly parks with more majestic views and more activities to offer, but there is no other place that speaks to my heart the way this place does.

Below some pictures taken at the park in recent years: 

Trillium, May 2012.

Wild violets, May 2012.

Jack-in-the-pulpit, May 2012.

First Granddaughter, age 9 months, second visit to Lyman Run, Aug. 2014.

Most of us: my father, siblings and all our significant others and most
of our children (some of them with their own children) and
significant others spread out on the grass above the beach, Aug. 2014.

Rocks on the aptly named Rock Run Road, May 2013.

Son-Three and his dog Mira at Losey Vista, on Rock Run Road, Mother's Day 2013,
the day he told me I was going to be a grandmother.

Sunset behind the lake as seen from Rock Run Road, May 2013.

Third Nephew and Seventh Niece, on the beach, August 2014,
it was chilly that day so we had the place almost to ourselves.
Photo courtesy Youngest Sister's Husband & by
"courtesy" I mean I totally stole it from his Facebook album.

And one bonus shot from considerably further back: 

Me at Lyman Run, age 3 with my great grandparents, Gram and Uncle Lloyd*, Summer 1971

P is for Places I Belong

*To be completely accurate, Uncle Lloyd was not actually my great-grandfather, but my step great-grandfather. He was my actual great-great uncle, though. Gram was my father's mother's mother and after her first husband passed away, she and my father's father's uncle married right around the time I was born. So I always thought of Uncle Lloyd as my great-grandfather, though I always called him Uncle Lloyd and for the longest time I never understood why.