My Memory Book

     In the summer between fifth and sixth grade, my parents, sisters and I lived in a camp ground next to a power plant in Wyoming. My Dad was a welding teacher during the school year but in the summer would go weld on jobs anywhere in the country where the pay was good. We were in southwest Wyoming and it looked like a set from a western movie. It was all sage brush and gopher holes. I didn't look too closely but there were probably even rattle snakes. They had set up a camp ground for the workers. We were about 30 miles from the nearest town and had no TV. We read, played cards, and hung out with all the other kids in the camp.
     The weekends were the best. My folks would load us up and off we'd go to all the cool stuff we could drive to. At Yellowstone we stayed in the old section of Old Faithful Lodge. It's made of logs and looks like it did a hundred years ago. In Jackson Hole we stayed in a hotel with a pool and hiked and explored the mountains. We went to Salt Lake City and swam in the Great Salt Lake. When you get out the sun dries the water and leaves salt crystals on you.
     The only weekend that didn't work out was the weekend we went to Cheyenne. Grams thought Poppa had brought the cash and Poppa thought Grams had brought the cash so we had to turn around and just drive back. This was in the days before lots of credit cards or ANY ATM's so no cash/no luck.
     We had a couple of other summers of traveling to job sites, but the summer in Wyoming was my favorite.