“This is a love story,” said Janice Williams, known as simply J. “I don’t know if I can think of a word big enough to say what it’s meant to me.”
J was standing on the side of a road in Armstrong County Friday afternoon, hair tossed by the stiff wind, surrounded by the friends, horses, wagons and buggies that were finishing the 14-day, 282 mile journey to send her husband Len’s ashes into the air above Palo Duro Canyon.
“For all these people to take two weeks off their jobs to get this man to his resting place, that’s unconditional love,” J said.
Len, who died of cancer on April 18 at the age of 52, was from Pampa and loved the canyon’s western character.
J shows off the two-gallon, enameled metal coffee pot where Len’s ashes waited in a plastic bag.
“They put fresh flowers in the spout every day, but they’re kind of blown away today,” J said, pointing to the flowerless stems that were left. “He’s been everywhere with us — all the bars, all the restaurants. He’s been in every picture we’ve taken.”
Len’s and J’s hobbies included competitive chuckwagon cooking, trail rides and catering brandings on ranches. Their home is in Breckenridge, northwest of Abilene. And the people who escorted them from there to the canyon looked like they stepped out off a ranch. There were high-top, colorful western boots; suspenders; mustaches that draped below men’s chins; kerchiefs and lots of cowboy hats.
Four horsemen helped control vehicle traffic for the 10 wagons and buggies in the procession down prairie-lined roads.
Here is the Amarillo.com video report:
http://youtu.be/eN8jvgvL-2Y
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