Awake: 8:15am Sleep 7+45 overnight @ Norfolk, Virginia.
We slept a little longer than planned so we both had to scramble & take showers before attending the only Catholic Church in downtown Norfolk. The Basilica of St Mary of the Immaculate Conception, an historical church, was founded as a Black mission and still serves a predominately African-American population, thus the Mass celebration was a little different from our usual Mass program.
To start with, there are no kneelers & they sing & chant a lot more. Since this is Pentecost Sunday, many female parishioners were dressed in red and a lot of girls, young to old, were dressed in beautiful white dresses with a wide red sash. At certain times, these girls danced in the aisles while using a wand & twirling a streamer of red velvet. Meanwhile the church members would be clapping their hands & swaying to the music. Before the Mass began, visitors were asked to stand up; we counted (5) white people including ourselves, out of a total of maybe 200 plus. Everyone however, was very, very friendly & made us feel most welcome. The Mass lasted 1.5 hrs. Kathy says: “That’s one way of turning a slow & boring Catholic Mass into a lively & cheerful Black revival.”
Back to the hotel for breakfast with Katie & Zack; after breakfast, we gather our things & check out of the hotel around 1:00pm. A phone call from Melissa suddenly gives us the opportunity to avoid starvation. She tells us they need help @ the Tony & Evan house with the extra food left over from last night.
Nick maneuvers the big Dodge Durango; now transporting only (6) people & follows our Suzuki back to the house of extra food & a few less party goers. We spend some of the afternoon trying to get a decent up-to-date family photo, but our timing was a bit off and we were not very successful. However, most of the afternoon was spent chatting with Bob & Diane, Tom & Marne, Melissa & Kevin, Matthew & Andrew, Evan & Tony, & a few more family members. Oh yes, we did our best to help reduce the overloaded freezer & refrigerator of some still mighty delicious food. That phone call should have come sooner & we would have skipped breakfast!
At one point, Kevin & I excused ourselves, went outdoors & finally found the right plug to temporarily disconnect the Ford van’s horn which, a few days ago, started beeping intermittently when making left turns. I had spent a little time pouring over the manual before going outside.
I also volunteered to help make repairs on an old doll house of Tony’s by super gluing (2) windows in place, replacing a stairway & a wall section.
We thank Tony & Evan and Bob & Diane for their hospitality & for including us in so many of the wedding activities on this special occasion. It was a good reunion for all of us.
Evening time; we return to the hotel & hang out with the kids until 9:45pm. It was really nice being together with our family & Katie again. We wish each other a safe & comfortable journey. Then we drive our Suzuki back to Newport News, stop @ a Wal-Mart for groceries & a Seven Eleven for fuel & arrive @ our campsite @ 11:55pm.
Lights out: 12:29am
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