The Grand Tour

In the summer of 1957, I think, John and I took Carolyn and Jim for a grand tour. Mother kept Mary Ann at Hawthorne while we were gone.
We went through Colorado and on up to Yellowstone National Park. We stayed in motels that trip. Explored Colorado Springs. Drove over old mountain roads.
Found an old hotel up in the mountains and spent the night there. The bathroom was down the hall, but the place was very nice. At night they had a Hiss and Boo play , and that was fun. We went into an old abandoned gold mine and drove up Pikes Peak.
Then on to Yellowstone. The first night we arrived there we had to sleep in our car. That wasn't very comfortable, but the next morning we were standing in a line for a place to sleep. We stayed there two or three nights and saw everything.
One night we went to the big lodge for a Western Square Dance party. I remember that we were sitting in a balcony watching the dancers down below, when a nice looking young man came over and talked to us. Introduced himself, visited a while, and asked if Carolyn would like to dance. Of course she would.
Our next stop was Salt Lake City, and we toured the Mormon facility and heard the organ. Looked over, and there was that nice young man again.
I think he and friends were touring the West after high school graduation. He told us about his parents who were both college professors in an Ivy League school in the New England states. He seemed to enjoy listening to us talk !
Carolyn and Jim were so tired of sightseeing that they didn't want to go out to the Salt Lake. We checked into a nice motel and they fell into the swimming pool there. No desire to see the Salt Lake.
Well, I had come a long way to see that Lake, so we finally decided to let them stay alone. I guess they were 14 and 8. That was a big decision, but it worked out fine.
We got home eventually, hot and tired, from our two week journey. The yard was all grown up, hadn't been mowed in two weeks. Mary Ann was OK, and we were unpacking the car when that nice young man came driving up.
Of course we were all very surprised to see him. He helped with what we were doing and asked if he could mow the lawn. Well, he was almost one of the family by then.
I think I cooked chicken fried steak and black-eyed peas, etc. and he was amazed at the Southern cooking and hospitality. He had never been South or to Texas before.
Later that evening he joined his buddies and continued on his trip. He wrote to Carolyn for quite a number of years, and she lost interest in him.

When we were crossing the Colorado River near Page, Arizona that summer, we saw the new dam that they were building. John and I were very interested in how they were doing that and we stopped to take it in. The dam would make Lake Powell, and we hoped that someday we could come back to see it.
And we did.