I will admit that I had a bad first impression of Wyoming. I wanted to be picturing Park Ranger Joe Pickett and County Sheriff Walt Longmire (two of my favorite fictional detectives and Wyoming residents) as we drove through Cheyenne heading towards our stop for the night, Buffalo, WY. I was optimistic, and then our car’s air conditioning went kaput. It was 85 degrees.

We faked light-heartedness. How bad could it get? We drove and drove, with our windows cracked and this as our scenery….

There was a lot of “what did you say?” And “I can’t hear you.” At one point there was a bee in our car. I am happy to tell you neither of us are allergic to bee stings, nor did either of us get stung. As far as I know, the bee is still in the car, awaiting today’s adventures and sharpening his stinger.

We arrived at our hotel in Buffalo, WY, put on our masks, and went to reception. The receptionist looked at us as though we were robbing the place. I’m pretty sure she pushed the silent alarm. Apparently Wyoming is mask-free. But they aren’t snickering-free as a total of three people laughed at OUR COVERED UP FACES as we made our way to the room. They were blissfully unaware that we had just spent four hours in a car with no air conditioner and a bee and this as our scenery…..

 I’m happy to tell you that in his Bill-like way, he fixed our air conditioner…..

And then we went to dinner where I had a delicious ribeye steak and a terrible martini — but it was a martini. And our air conditioning was fixed. Next to the restaurant was this…..

So the meat was probably freshly slaughtered. Hmmm.

I leave you with this:

Two happy travelers…..

….and this menu item at the restaurant at which we ate…..

The Bomber Mountain Burger is what makes America great.

You know the old tale about the old person who can’t find their glasses only to realize they are either wearing them or they are on the top of their heads. Actually, if you’re a Baby Boomer, you know it’s not a tale, but instead, it’s reality.

The other day, Bill and I were walking into Walmart. I began rooting in my purse for my face mask. I couldn’t find it anywhere. I stopped and began seriously looking. Bill kept walking, until he realized I wasn’t following him.

“What’s the matter”? he asked me.

“%&*^%((&$$*A),”I responded. “I can’t find my damn mask.”

He paused for a moment. “Do you mean the one that’s on your face?” he asked.

Yep. That’d be the one. Just one more sign that the mask is becoming like second skin. Yuck…..

Have a great weekend.

Baby You Can Drive My Car 
I’ve had it up to HERE with boredom lately. I’ve spent a little bit of time with my grands, and that has been a refreshing change. But yesterday morning, when Bill awoke, I let him drink a cup of coffee, and then told him I wanted to go for a drive. I wouldn’t even had to have waited for the coffee, because he was game on. We didn’t go far, about a half hour south of our house to a place called Daniels Park. I hadn’t visited Daniels Park for probably 40 years. Ridiculous, of course, because it’s so close. It’s kind of an urban park as they have sort of developed around it, but it’s still quite beautiful and quiet. Lots of trails that I want to try soon because they don’t look too difficult. And spectacular views. It was so nice to get out amidst nature for a bit, and to get out of our house!…..

Heeeeere Comes Ralphie… 
One of the most interesting things we saw at Daniels Park was a rather large herd of bison. The park, while part of the Denver Parks System, is surrounded by homes on one side, but by privately-owned ranches around the rest of it. And one of the ranches apparently raises bison. By the way, I looked up the difference between bison and buffaloes, and was surprised to learn there are no buffaloes roaming around the United States. Africa has water buffalo. USA has bison. Tell that to the University of Colorado Buffaloes. Go Buffs! Anyhoo, the bison are massive, and there were a lot of calves. I told the calves if they behave themselves, they might grow up to be CU’s mascot Ralphie!…..

When we were driving home, I asked Bill if he wanted to go to Ted’s Montana Grill and have a bison burger!

He’ll Never Be Jimmy Hendrix
The toys I have for my grandkids are old, and and purchased mostly when they were babies. I haven’t bought a single toy (aside from Play Doh) for the kids in six years. The other day, Mylee and Cole and I went downstairs to look for something, and the kids got in the toy chest. They began rooting through the toys and came up with some treasures, including a Little Kitty baby guitar. Mylee began pretending she was playing guitar, and carried it upstairs. The next morning, it was still laying where she had put it — where Bill sits in the morning to have coffee. “Hmmm,” I heard him say. “I think I could tune this thing.” He pulled up some tuning program from the internet and began attempting to tune the 10-year-old Little Kitty guitar. He wasn’t very successful, but he made me laugh…..

Happy Birthday 
As it happens, today is Mylee’s birthday. She reached double digits — 10 years old. It seems like yesterday that she was just a bitty baby. This photo, taken and posted six years ago, showed up on my Facebook feed yesterday. It made me smile…..

The girl has always liked the frosting best.

Ciao.

The other day, I was driving Mylee and Cole to my house. In the way it happens in car rides, we somehow got to talking about television and specifically Netflix. In the course of our conversation, I told Mylee, “When I was growing up, there were only three channels available to us, and if we wanted to change the channel, we had to get up from our chair and walk over to the television and turn the knob to the new channel.”

She was stunned. “What channels did you have?” she asked, hoping to God that at least I had Nickelodeon and could watch The Loud House . 

“We had NBC, CBS, and ABC,” I told her. “You know, just the regular network channels.”

“What’s network mean?” she asked.

I tried to give her an example of a show she might watch that is on regular network television, and couldn’t come up with a single one. Most of the time she’s watching You Tube anyway.

Man, television has changed a bunch since I was a kid and dinosaurs walked the earth. Remember when Fred Flintstone’s television was made out of stone? That was just one step below our TV when I was in grade school. Our television was enormous, with a very small screen. It weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand pounds. For a lot of my youth, it was black and white.

And the programs have changed as well. I know I sound one hundred years old, but I simply can’t believe what is on TV at 7 o’clock in the evening. What we used to call family viewing time. I guess it doesn’t matter, because our kids aren’t watching network television anyway.

Bill and I have been watching a program called Yellowstone. It is on Sunday nights on the Paramount cable channel. The show stars Kevin Costner, who I’ve always thought was a hit-or-miss actor. In this show, he is definitely hitting a home run. He plays the patriarch of the Dutton family who owns an enormous ranch in Montana that shares borders with an Indian reservation, Yellowstone National Park, and land owned by developers. Imagine the conflicts. The photography is beautiful. It reminds me of finally convincing my father to buy a colored television by pointing out how the scenery in Bonanza and Big Valley would be so much prettier in color. The Montana mountains featured in Yellowstone are definitely pretty in color. The shenanigans that the Duttons get away with is astounding.

Yellowstone is definitely worth watching, or at least I think so, but it is GRAPHICALLY violent and the sex isn’t just hinted at. I know. I once again sound 100 years old. Get off my lawn. But keep in mind that I really like the show, so there’s that.

Remember when Gunsmoke was popular? Matt Dillon killed people, but we didn’t have to close our eyes as it happened. Matt and Miss Kitty didn’t fool me, even as a kid, but whether or not they were more than friends was left up to our imagination.

Remember these guys?…..

The Cartwrights

Look familiar?…..

The Duttons

The only thing missing is Hop Sing.

One of the side effects of COVID-19 is that people are no longer able to hug, unless the hugger is intimately acquainted with the huggee. Even good friends who in the past I might have greeted with a brief hug, I now only give a a smile and a wink. (Actually, I don’t wink, not the least of which is because I’m unable to wink. But I would if I could. I love a good wink.)

My models were mostly hand-shakers, and not huggers. Nowadays, everyone hugs. I admit that my Get Off My Lawn crabby self has been known to holler at the television when people who are meeting for the first time give one another hugs. Why are you hugging, I will yell at the television. You just met that person. Bill doesn’t approve of my yelling at the television, but he agrees with my sentiment. He too was reared by non-huggers.

Neither my mother nor my father were particularly demonstrative when we were growing up. It was hugs before bedtime, rather than kisses. And while I never doubted my parents’ love for me in the least, there weren’t a lot of I love you’s tossed around. Polish and Swiss genes, donchaknow.

I remember very clearly that after Jen and Leroy got married, Jen started hugging Mom and Dad when saying hello and goodbye. Leroy, being of hispanic ancestry, was a hugger. (I must admit that Jen’s son B.J. inherited the hugging gene, and is about the best hugger I have ever met.) I pointed out to Jen one time that she was the one who broke the “hugging barrier” in our family. She admitted that it was a conscious effort on her part. She had missed the hugging that we used to get from Grammie Gloor (who didn’t get the no-hugging memo), and was determined to break down the Wall Against Demonstrative Love. It worked because before long, we were all hugging one another in greeting and departing.

I was thinking about this the past day because demonstrative love varies among my grandchildren. It even varies within individual families. All the grandkids will hug me; some have to be persuaded a bit.

Here’s what I mean: The other day, Court dropped off the kids to spend the day with us. Of those three kids, undoubtedly Cole is the most affectionate. In fact, he is probably the most demonstrably affectionate of all of my grandkids. That makes me laugh, because Court has dug deeply into his Swiss and Polish roots. Like my grands, he often has to be persuaded to hug.

On the other hand, Cole and Mylee were playing outside on the grass, and I was sitting on the patio reading. Suddenly, Cole left their game and ran up to me and reached for a hug and said, “I love you Nana,” and took off back to his game.

While I think I can honestly say I have never hugged anyone upon first introduction. I will admit that I am more apt to hug now than I was when I was a kid or a young adult. I will also admit that the first time I was able to hug some of my loved ones once the quarantine landed upon us, I literally teared up.

Sometimes I good hug is what you need….

I mentioned that Jen’s daughter Maggie and her family are visiting from AZ. Since this is generally their Big Vacation of the year, Jen tries to find fun things for them to do. This year, her big surprise was that they were all going to go horseback riding in Estes Park.

Many, many moons ago, my dad had the same idea as Jen. He took the family horseback riding in Estes Park. He and Bec and Jen enjoyed the experience. Mom, Dave, and I decidedly did not. Mom and I were simply terrified. Dave, being only about 2, rode in front of Dad on the same horse. He cried the whole way. Once we got to the top of the mountain where we would eat breakfast, Dad learned that Dave was crying because his, well, family jewels were pushed up against the saddle horn the entire way. Not a good way to learn to love horseback riding. At one time, there existed a photo of that day. What I remember is the look on Mom’s face: a mixture of terror and unhappiness.

Jen sent me photos yesterday of their experience. She proclaimed it to be one of the most awesome days of her life. In the photos, it seems like Lilly and her parents enjoyed the experience. Unfortunately, Austin did not. His face reminds me of Mom’s, and it made me laugh…..

When they got to the top, Jen asked Austin, “Isn’t it so beautiful up here?” His answer came quick, “No. I’m scared of heights.”

Back to the drawing board for him. And by the way, he takes after his Great Aunt Kris.

Have a great weekend.