2024 01 15 - FL - St Petersburg

Picture: There is not a cemetery sign, but this one is at the entrance.

We had walked in a state park this AM and this cemetery was about a mile away on the same street. We had a grave location, but could not find any markings on the cemetery grounds. We did see one name on a building that was close so we stopped there and walked.

And then we walked what the other person had walked. That was a small area 20 graves deep and 100 graves wide. We didn't find the one we were looking for so we 'assumed' it was one of the ones covered by a tarp near a new grave.

I finally stopped and asked, the office is on the grounds. They walked me over to it as it was less than a block from the office. Both my wife and I had missed it.

Picture: This sign is INSIDE the VA medical grounds, not next to the city street.

We went for an easy one. Once we are at the grounds, it is easy. The GPS was telling us to turn at the War Memorial Park area. We could see the cemetery from the drive, but there was a fence between us. So we had to stop and look at a map.

Then the first gate was closed, we thought because it was a holiday maybe the whole area was closed.

Third try was open, but then there are one way streets and no directions to where the cemetery is. But with the help of our map we were able to find it. This one is small compared to some.

But like all, this is well marked and we found the marker quickly.

Picture: Big sign, but not near the main street.

Another mile or so and we are at our third cemetery. It was easy to find. And it has 50,000 graves. So months to find a marker without locations.

As we pulled in, we found a person working the grounds that couldn't help us. But he called someone else over. He told us where to find the section we were looking for ... and that the sections have both a name and a code. Kind of like the zip codes and state abbreviations.

The section we were looking for was across the street and back in the corner. We found the area and after walking almost all of it, we did find the grave marker. We also found that there were more detailed markers but those are not listed on Find-a-Grave yet.

... then we realized that there was another person here we wanted to find. Now we knew the how so it should be easy.

We found the area and walked about a third of it. We also pegged other markers to see where they were compared to the one we were looking for. But didn't find it today.

By now it was time to find a hotel and be off the streets before dark.