Trip to Grandmas

Just about every summer when the garden was well established, Mom would load up the car and all us kids and we would set off for a visit to Grandma’s little place just outside of Tooele Utah.  We left early in the morning, with the sun to our backs as we climbed the pass into Yellowstone Park, then past Old Faithful Geyser, and all the hot springs with their rainbow colored rocks.  Elk, buffalo and bears roamed freely–often near the highway.  We then turned south, the pine trees making shadows across the road like a picket fence.  Soon we passed the Grand Tetons, still capped in snow, and then down a long valley into Salt Lake City.

 All the way we would sing folk songs learned in school, and hymns learned in church.  We had a goal to try and sing all the way to Grandma’s without repeating a song.  We enjoyed music, but I’m sure that Mom enjoyed the singing, without it there surely would have been some arguing and fighting.  A car with five kids could be rambunctious.  Even though we were by now tired from the 14 hours on the road, we pressed our faces to the windows so not to miss a sight of this huge city.  All the lights, tall buildings and activity amazed us.  

Then past the Salt Aire amusement park with its roller coaster over the lake, past all the salt fields, past the acrid smoke of the copper mines, then Grandma’s house.  She hustled us in declaring in her thick Latvian brogue that we must be hungry, and there was supper, followed with milk and cookies, and off to bed.