Paper Hearts and Plastic Roses: Passing Bells and Sculpted Angels

On that bright immortal shore,
We shall meet to part no more.

This past weekend my family came into town to visit and rather than waste time with travel I decided to stay in the motel with them. Mom informed me not to expect much - to save money, the motel wouldn't exactly be 5-star quality. Rather, it had questionable guests, sofas with holes in them, and a faulty heating/cooling system.

It wasn't until we were sitting in the van waiting for Mom to get the room keys that my dad told me about the graveyard in the parking lot.

...

Yeah. New levels of sketchy have officially been reached.

Apparently, in addition to the four family plots in the parking lot, people who died from floods or sickness were buried on the same grounds. Their graves were marked with simple stones or wooden crosses that disappeared long ago. When the motel foundation was being dug, workers began to come accross bones and other remains throughout the area and realized they were building in the middle of a cemetery!

Being the history nerd that I am, the next morning I woke up and went down to check it out, pushing my way through bushes to get as close to the plots as possible. Because the plots form an L shape and the area in the parking lot is a square, to get that close I had to walk over several unmarked graves. It was an eerie feeling.

Here are some of my favorite pictures, along with the one of the sign that tells all about the plots. To see them larger, simply click on the photo you want to view.