Traveling Past and Future

When our two kids were able to walk and talk and were out of diapers we began taking them camping. They loved to gather sticks for the campfire, roast hot dogs and make s’mores. If there was a beach they would play in the water until they were wrinkled like raisins. When they learned to ride a bike we would bring those, too. Around the time they reached their teen years we stretched out these vacations in both time and distance. Over the next few years we traveled to The Dells, The Badlands and Mount Rushmore, Grand Tetons, the Rocky Mountains and Yellowstone. We usually stayed in cabins, sometimes next to a river or stream or on a mountain. We had to quickly climb a slope to avoid a bison, break for bears and share a river with moose. We toured caves and zoos and museums, took hikes, enjoyed campfires. And then it was over; the kids graduated high school and were off to college. Recently one of our granddaughters stayed with us for a few days. Peanut, her nickname, is seven years old. I was looking at a thin paperback book by Lincoln Borglum about the construction of Mount Rushmore. Peanut wandered up to me and was looking at the photos. I asked if she knew what that was. She shook her head no. I briefly explained what it was and then added that her mommy and uncle had traveled there with us to see it when they were younger. “You mean you saw that, in person,” she asked, her eyes lighting up. I told her yes. “Did you climb up it,” she wondered. I told her no. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. I want to go see it, too,” she said, doing a little dance. “Can we go see it?” I replied, “Well, you just never know, Peanut.” We looked at each other and smiled, content with that answer for now.