Trailer, Sweet Trailer

It's taken me all week to be able to put these pictures up.  I wanted to do more processing on them, but every time I opened the folder and started looking at them, I started tearing up.  I'm hopelessly sentimental, but I think I can be forgiven considering what the loss of this haven means for our family.

My maternal grandfather was born and raised in good ole' Scipio, Utah.  Many know it because it's about the only pit stop in Central Utah (now complete with a petting zoo and small motel!).  For me, it was a vacation heaven where I went with my immediate family or just my grandparents.  When I was really little, I remember bodies lining the floor as my grandparents attempted to make sleeping spots for my 6 siblings, parents, and themselves.  Later, I visited them on my own and reveled in the freedom of having the (8'x6') bedroom all to myself. 

When I started college at BYU, I would sometimes meet them down in Scipio for a weekend, and finally started bringing my new husband, Derek, down. 

The front room hosted what my grandpa calls his "million dollar view".  The poor picture above doesn't do it justice, but I remember watching TV programs with my grandparents, and glancing up often to take in the beauty of the mountains just outside.

Getting up in the morning would have me eating Lucky Charms, Boo Berry, Franken Berry, Count Chocula, or some other sugary cereal that was never stocked at home.

My grandparents were great ones for picnics.  They knew the most beautiful places to go in the mountains.  These meals where often followed by some exploring.  Once, my grandma and I picked berries on the banks of a small, cold mountain stream, and then taking them home to the trailer.  Then my grandma performed some magic!  With a little cooking, straining, and canning, she created some jelly from those berries and gave it to me to take home to my family.  When you are 12 and live in our day and age, that sort of thing certainly seems fantastical.

Let us not forget the outhouse that was a staple since the water tended to be off and on in the trailer bathroom.  Every time I walked in, I was sure the boards where going to rot through and I would plunge into a cesspool of death.  Every time I sat down, I was sure I was going to end up with spider bits all over my bum cheeks...  And every time I finished and shut the door, I breathed a huge sigh of relief that I had survived another brush with primitive living...  :)

When the water was off, I would sometimes wash my hair under the pump out back.  The water was bitterly cold well-water, but a welcome relief during the summer month visits.  I remember how sweetly my grandma would stand there with a towel and help me wring my hair out as I applied shampoo and conditioner.  Then she would help me towel my hair dry. 

 I went to Primary several times at the Scipio chapel.  The church was an answer to prayers many years ago after the locals had had to commute a long time to get to the closets church.  Not far from the church was the parade route where they threw candy every 4th of July to the kids.  I had my first taste of candy wrapped in rice paper at one of those parades.

Time just continues to hurry on its way, and it's hard to say goodbye to those sweet, sweet memories.  But time also brings improvements & beauty, like in the Scipio cemetery that has been completely redone, with grass and new gravestones for the oldest of graves (pioneer aged).  As a child, I went often with my grandparents to place flowers on their relative's graves, including my grandma's stillborn baby.  In the most symbolic of senses, it reminds me of how much my grandparents love me and how often they expressed their joy in the many successes of my life, as well as sorrow and prayers for the sad events.  The trailer may be gone, but my children are busy making their own sweet memories, as will their children, on down through the generations.