The drive of today is pretty smooth. Some snow here and there, but no more storms. I make a stop at West Yellowstone, but I don’t go into the park, since several roads are still closed for the season. I drive further to Montana and arrive at my grandma’s house around six in the evening.
When she sees my car driving into the driveway, she waits on me with a big sign ‘Welcome Edwin’. I greet her with a big hug and am glad I made the 3000 mile drive all the way up here to Montana. Grandma puts a lasagna in the oven, we have dinner together and then watch our favorite show ‘Last Man Standing’. We both love to end the day with laughter.
The past few days I had some sense to get to Montana as soon as possible, but I wasn’t quite sure why. Timewise there was no rush. This morning as I open the curtains, I know why I had to be here yesterday. Outside there is a big layer of snow and it’s still snowing. It’s a beautiful sight and I’m glad I’m already here and didn’t have to drive through it.
When grandma wakes up, she greets me with “What have you done?”, we both laugh because I know she’s talking about the snow. “It’s so much fun!”, I reply and she tells me that it wouldn’t be fun if I wasn’t here. After a whole winter of snow she’s had enough of it, but I’m excited! Grandma tells me that this usually doesn’t happen in May and that it was Summer weather last week. I decide to make use of the opportunity, stop working and go outside to build a snowman. The snow is perfect for it and in not too much time I have a big one standing in front of grandma’s house. Later in the day other grandchildren of grandma visit and their little children love the snowman. The rest of the day is quite relaxed, we do some groceries at Costco and Walmart, I fix grandma’s tv (she’s happy to have a tech guy in the house) and we hang out with the other grandchildren who come to visit. They have children of themselves who love to play in their great-grandma’s house.
The snowmen don’t last too long, because in the following days it gets warmer again. The days here are a bit slower, but I like it. One day I’m texting a friend that I feel that I’m getting a bit lazy here, and she replies with that that’s probably a good thing since I’m finally relaxing. I like that perspective and think I’ll have a few more relaxed days here. Part of the reason to come to America is to see beautiful nature and do cool things, but another part is also that I needed a vacation after a busy period, so that’s what I’m doing here in Montana. With grandma the days are mainly filled with going out for meals, doing some groceries, playing Scrabble and hang out with the other grandchildren. I also get to see some other friends in town during the week. On Saturday we go to some garage sales which are a big thing here and on Sunday I take grandma on a surprise trip to Canyon Ferry Lake, about half an hour out of town. It’s a beautiful sunny day and after a bit of hesitation I decide to jump in the ice cold water. It’s very cold, but also exciting since it was snowing only a few days before. These kind of things make you feel alive.
It’s Friday morning and I’ve been with grandma for about ten days and it feels like time has been flying by. When I think about it, we didn’t do many special things, just enjoying the days together. But perhaps that are the special things. We played games of Scrabble, shared many meals together, as well cooking at home as going out to restaurants. We talked, we laughed, we enjoyed the beautiful views from grandma’s deck at the back of the house.
I’d love to stay longer here, but I still have a long way back to California, so I decided that this weekend I’ll hit the road again. Not too far, just to Yellowstone park which is a couple of hours south from Helena.
