Pine Grove Cemetery 2023

I headed to Pine Grove to add new flowers at the cemetery this weekend. My friend Kris helped put up flowers last year and wanted to go again. This year we also added some flags.

Stepping up!

Honey Badger is back from her first oil change with the new engine. I added drop-down Rock Slide Engineering step sliders. My hips will be so thankful!

Momma Bager (Grand Cherokee) is put away and Honey Badger is ready to play!

Pine Grove

Pine Grove is one of my favorite ghost towns. It has multiple remaining structures and something for everyone.

Discovered in 1866, Pine Grove is one of the first settlements in the area. The town grew to 600 residents and was a regional supply center. A decrease in mining and demonetization of silver resulted in the decline of the once-thriving town. Sadly, Pine Grove became a ghost town in the 1930s.

Pine Grove Cemetery

In 2021, I was involved in a group cleaning up at Pine Grove. Working with federal land management agencies and non-profits, we cleaned up the ghost town. I noticed the flowers were faded, so I replaced them. This marks the third year I have put flowers at the Pine Grove cemetery.

Sadly, this year I noticed damage since my last visit. Some were due to natural causes, but other damage was human-caused.

Kris noticed that the trees in this cemetery section were arranged in rows and perfectly aligned and speculated that each marked a grave. That makes sense to me; many trees had graves below.

The memorial marked by a toy unicorn is special to me. The first time I left flowers, it was one of the few photos I shared. I assumed it was a child’s grave. Months later, a man contacted me after having found the photo online. It was a memorial to his wife, who had died unexpectedly in 2020. The unicorn was the last thing he bought her, and she loved Pine Grove, so he left it on the hill in her memory.

Alice’s grave was the last we visited. We cleaned it up and left new flowers. We arranged the angels; many had fallen over winter.

Visitors have left new moments, including a rock hand painted with an angel.

Pine Grove River

In all my years visiting Pine Grove, I have never seen a river through town.

Noticing thunderheads building, we headed down the hill from Pine Grove.

Valley Grove Cemetery

Kris loves visiting cemeteries so I took her to one of my favorites, the Valley Grove Cemetery in Smith Valley. With the impending thunderstorm and mosquitoes, we didn’t stay long. Since my last visit, a large number of the graves have collapsed.

I want to say we made it home before the storm hit, but we didn’t. Around Topaz Ranch Estates, we hit crazy thunder, rain and hail.

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