Last weekend, we went back to see my family in western Pennsylvania.  I wanted to go for a few reasons.  First, there was a belated Mother's Day party with my step-father, Glenn's, family.  There was a political rift, only recently repaired, between Glenn and his family the last few years, so I haven't seen them in a long time.  It might be a while before I see them again, so I wanted to take this opportunity.  Second, my mom suffered a fall a few weeks ago in Montana.  She tore all of the gooey parts in the knee and fractured a couple bones for good measure.  There were also a stressful follow-up episode involving my mom taking a flight with a blood-clot which doctors were concerned could become dislodged and kill her (it didn't).  Even though she's totally safe, mobile, and unpained now, I wanted to see how she was holding up.  Finally, I needed to take stuff home before I left and I might as well do it now.

My mom married Glenn and moved at the same time I moved out (into my friend's garage), the summer before I went to college.  I grew up in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, which is a crappy former steel manufacturing town that has very little going for it and is mostly known for a flood that killed a few thousand people there in the late 19th century.  Now we live in Indiana, PA, about 45 minutes from Johnstown.  Indiana has a state university and in excess of one Indian restaurant, so it's less depressing.  I've only lived here over breaks from college, so it doesn't really feel like home to me.  I don't feel very nostalgic for Johnstown.  Practically no one I know lives there anymore.

On Saturday, I went out with Glenn and my teenage step-brother Stephen to the rail-to-trail and did a nice 26-mile ride.  It felt good, and it was a sweet goodbye to Willis Bike.

Sunday was the Mother's Day party.  Glenn grew up in rural northern Appalachia, and was raised to believe that the Second Coming would happen on a definite date before he was 25.  His dad, who's 81 and still the hardest man I've ever met, ran an unlicensed coal mine in the woods when times got rough.  He still works every day, doing repairs on cars, scrapping metal, and moving earth around the property.  Glenn tells a story - verified by other members of his family - about another backwoods clan who suffered congenital baldness and a peculiar speech defect, such that they could understand each other, but almost no one could understand them.  They called the patriarch of the family "Dutchy," because his defect was so incomprehensible that it sounded like Pennsylvania Dutch to outsiders.

Anyway, the party was really nice.  Glenn's sister, Sal, made the most incredible vegan pudding (avocado-based!) I have ever had the pleasure of eating.  They're all bright, fine people.  I'm always surprised by how accepting they are of me, despite how different I am.

This is an Asian Long-Horned Beetle captured by Glenn's brother Jeff.  Jeff works for the Government Extension Office.  This beetle is very damaging to hardwoods, and hasn't been identified in Cambria County yet, but that's where this one was caught.