Rocky Mountain High, Here I Come!

Well, today I take off for Colorado, the new home of my oldest son, his wife, and my adorable twin granddaughters.  They just made a cross-country move from Alabama (oh, the joys of military life!), and this will be the third home this young couple has shared since they got married in December of 2009.  Thank goodness they will be able to stay put out there in the Rockies for at least another two years, during which time, hopefully, Papa and I will be able to get out there for a ski vacation (or two...or three).

That cute little family just moved into their house last week, and the movers have dropped off their belongings.  They've gotten a lot of the boxes unpacked, but there's still work to do--and who better to help them do it than Grammy, the empty-nester who misses having children to take care of and can also fly on the airline for which her husband works, free of charge?  True, I fly on stand-by status and can only get on a flight when there are unclaimed seats; but if you're willing to endure being bumped (I am), and you don't mind hanging out in the airport waiting for the next open flight to come along (I don't--especially since that delays the terrifying part: the flying), then you can't beat the deal I've got.  Without this convenient little perk afforded by my husband's job, I would not have been able to see my darling little Bonny* (the older of the twins) and Cutie* (the younger one, by two minutes) nearly as often as I have in the almost fifteen months they've been on this earth.  Forget the fact that I like flying about as much as I like having a root canal...Actually, I fell asleep in the chair when I had a root canal, but I can almost never relax enough to sleep when I'm in an airplane seat, so never mind that analogy.  What I meant to say was that as tough as it is for me to subject myself to my debilitating fear of take-offs and landings, I'm going to keep on doing it, because the alternative--missing out on seeing those little beauties--is even more fear-inducing!

"Rocky Mountain high, Colorado..."  (Remember this guy?)

You know, this trip is going to be a big first for me.  In my whole life, I've never been west of Indiana or Wisconsin--whichever of those two Midwestern states is further west (geography has never been my strong suit).  And the idea of flying into the Rockies...yikes!  I'm not imagining myself sitting happily in my seat, 30,000 feet above the ground (!!), with that upbeat John Denver tune from yesteryear playing in my head.  I'm imagining plane crashes in snow-capped mountains, and packs of wolves hunting down the crash survivors.  (Oh, not really.  However, if you are a white-knuckle flyer like me, one movie you shouldn't see is a nail-biter called The Grey, starring Liam Neeson.)  But I've got to force myself to think beyond the flight to what's waiting for me at the other end: those two little munchkins who really DO make me feel like I'm on a high, every time I'm around them.

*If you are new to this blog, these are my granddaughters' aliases, used to keep their real names private. Cutie is also sometimes called Kewpie, because she has a Kewpie doll smile.