Groszmama: The Low German way of saying, “Grandma”. To us it means an eighty-three year old lady who we highly treasure.

Groszmama is our maternal grandmother. Since she resides in Texas, we don’t get to associate with her very often. (Or at least not often enough for me). But since she needed a passport renewal, she came to visit us. Or actually, we picked her up in Wyoming.

On the 26th of January, we got up at 5:00 a.m to go to Wyoming. Tante Mariche, Tante Neta, our Cousin Beverly, and Groszmama were going to meet us in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

After an hour of getting ready, we left. We drove for about an hour, and then we got to the ‘ABC’ bridge. We call it that because that bridge has exactly 26 little bumps, that jolt the vehicle. Thanks to Mrs. Judy Robertson, we realized that we could say all the ABC’s while going across the bridge. Judy said that the engineer who designed the bridge, must have had children. 🙂

We also had an interesting experience at the Canadian/American border. When Daddy told the officer that there were 9 people in the van, he replied, “That’s a whole bunch of people.” When asked what we wanted to do in the States, Daddy replied that we wanted to get Groszmama. “What, you want to get more people to put in that van?” the officer responded. He also asked us what else we had in the van “besides a whole bunch of people”. Of course, he asked us more questions than that, but we remembered the ones with the characteristic, ‘whole bunch of people’.

We had wonderful weather on the way. Although we were wearing jackets at home, we hardly needed our sweaters when we got out of the van. In fact, we hardly saw snow except for in the scenic byway we took, which was mountainous. We saw quite a few bald eagles, which was a treat for us, since we don’t see very many back home.

Although we had a lot to listen to and read, the I-25 seemed to stretch, literally. I usually enjoy traveling but this time it felt as if the farther we went, the longer the road got. I told Mama that the towns we saw, sure got a lot of attention since there was nothing else to look at. It’s just bare land, a bunch of brush and a highway with a few twists and turns. You even wish for snow, since it’s so dry and grey.

At 9:00 p.m., we finally reached Cheyenne. We thought we would get there at around 7:00 p.m., but, as I said, the I-25 stretched. We were greeted by our two aunts, Beverly, and Groszmama. They had been at the motel since seven o’clock. We visited for about an hour and a half before going to bed. Tante Mariche is a born giver and we received a lot of little gifts from her.

In the morning, we had breakfast together before parting.

To be continued…