Secular Funeral

[JuliaL]

With respect, and I hope you won't think me presumptuous, but it sounds like your Dad was a lot like mine. It may have to do with the engineering mind and an approach to life as a problem to be solved. Your description of your father's planning and teaching sounds so very familiar.

Oddly, while you can scatter ashes just about anywhere on public or private (with permission) property,

In a similar vein, and in admission which demands that I never reveal my true identity...
My folks were cremated and their ashes returned. These were (mostly) interred in a military cemetery. We children (don't tell Uncle, Dad's not all there) held back some of the supply for scattering. Because of their love of travel, we thought it would be amusing to scatter their ashes as widely as feasible.
My efforts include,

Combining their cremains in a spice shaker (labeled UBIK) and shaking samples into:
1) the carpet of a jetway at Heathrow so they could be tracked into aircraft going to places in the middle east and Africa where they hadn't gotten to.
2) various engine and luggage compartments of private aircraft at an EAA fly-in, Oshkosh Wisconsin.
3) out the window of the Amtrak Southwest Chief in each state traversed on a trip from Chicago to LA to visit a grandchild (oh, and his parents too.)
They are now in a truly mixed marriage and even more widely traveled.