At 16 years old, my parents took me on a western trip and we went to Jackson Hole at the Foot of the Grand Tetons. I wish I could describe the magical feeling that I felt there and at that time. The picnic we had at Jackson Lake with no one else there was so awesome.
Mom had packed sandwiches and we had drink and looked at all of the beauty. I remember thinking, “this is a place I could live and die in.” It was gorgeous. The time was 1976 and the was before all of the Hollywood elites built their million dollar homes in and around the lake and in the area, It was pristine, perfect and perfectly uninhabited.
I asked my parents if I could go for a horseback ride, not that I knew how to do it, but my love for animals and horses was something that was calling me to do it. They did say “yes” and I was put on a very pretty horse, whose name I can not recall. The ride took me in and out of the woodsy area with other young people that wanted a ride through the beautiful woods at the base of the Tetons. It was really wonderful. I loved it.
This was the same trip that we went through Cody, Wyoming. I remember the antlers that were a big arch covering the entry to the town. I had read about Buffalo Bill Cody and enjoyed seeing everything in the town associated with him. That was a lot of fun.
We also visited Bisbee, Arizona. When my grandfather Charlie was a young man, he moved from Ishpiming, MI, and then from Richard Mine, NJ (please forgive me Mom in Heaven if I have some of this memory wrong), to work the Cooper mines there. He was a machinist. We saw the mines where he worked. On a later trip with my husband, Scott, we revisited the mines and saw where he lived- at the YMCA and later at a rented house while there in the early 1900’s. I imagined his being there if and when all of the gangsters and cowboys were there like Wild Bill Hickok and Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid and Jesse James, that may have passed through while he worked there. My husband Scott and I went to the library and researched grandpa Charlie. He was listed in the registry and it also listed my grandmother Beda as his wife. She was back in New Jersey with my Mom, Marjorie. She had told him to find a home for them and she would go out there. That did not happen and he came back to New Jersey where they settled in a home in Dover, NJ. If they had gone to Arizona, I would not be here right now documenting this journey.
What a wonderful memory and I hope you enjoyed this blog from me to you.
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