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This was a tough day for us -- Joya was flying home to begin school, and was leaving "the trip" for good. We would not see her again until we returned to Santa Barbara in October or November, depending on how long we can stand to stay out, not seeing her. We will miss her greatly; we expect to be in a kind of mourning for a bit, although the mood was light and excited the morning of their flight. This was also Remy's last day with us; the girls were flying together back to LAX, where Remy's mom was picking them up and taking them to Santa Barbara. We got up at 6:00 to be at the airport by 8:00, which we made easily despite some sometimes heavy rain, and Buffalo traffic. We got all of Joya's baggage safely checked -- she had 4 pieces, since she was 'moving out' of the trailer -- despite the fact that we had brought some of her stuff to the airport in a pillow case. We had brought no suitcases on this trip, and we unable to find a second cardboard box. But with the help of the ticket agent, we got everything taped up and checked, then saw to a little breakfast and settled down at the gate to wait for their flight to board. The farewell was teary for us, and exciting for them, understandably. Below the travelers are in line, and then boarding the plane...
While we had been at this campground, we had seen signs directing us to the nearby "Our Lady of Fatima" shrine. Prior to departing, we made a quick stop there to see what it was about -- it was actually noted on our road atlas. The shrine had been established quite some time ago by an obscure order of monks. Below is a photo that captures some of the elements of this site.
The charming image in the foreground of Christ actually forms part of a huge rosary -- the little nodules you can see in the background are the 'beads'. The shrine itself is at the far back. Perched on top of the hemispherical roof is a statue of the BVM (Blessed Virgin Mary). Located all over the shrine's grounds are statues of apparently every saint -- hundreds of them. Each had a little plaque or inscription indicating who donated the funds to establish that particular piece of statuary, with words like "Pray for Mama Penne -- from her loving family, Papa, Veronica and Little Jimmy". Apparently this is some kind of internationally renowned statuary garden -- some folks there had traveled from Italy to see it. We spent about 20 minutes there, and discussed the finer points of Catholicism on the short drive back to camp, especially the fact that, although there is only 1 Catholic god, we were a bit confused regarding what appear to be lesser gods, most notably Christ, The Holy Ghost, the BVM, and the veritable pantheon of saints, all of which apparently can be prayed to and called upon for aid, which implies that all of the above are in some sense listening and capable of acting on one's behalf in miraculous worldly interventions of some kind. But what do I know? August 29 - Geneva on the Lake
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