Lisa Binkley
The Happy Wanderer
For the first several decades of my life my father’s parents lived in the woods of Wisconsin, and my mother’s parents lived on the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park outside of Estes Park, Colorado. My grandpa’s sister lived “next door” to them (about ¼ mile away). We visited my father’s parents often and played alongside Honey Creek, in the fields, and in the woods. We visited my mother’s parents every summer for a week or two, and my two sisters and I loved climbing the huge rocks surrounding their home and spending as much time as possible outdoors.
The photo is of a painting a friend made for my grandparents of their Colorado home. My grandpa built the playhouse for my sisters and me and for our cousins. We’d play house in there and sometimes camp out overnight. My grandma always had creative projects for us while we visited, especially making artistic notecards and building doll houses. She was an accomplished seamstress, embroiderer, and knitter, and she made these two outfits for my Barbie Dolls. She taught me to embroider.
My sisters and I loved to collect pieces of rose quartz we found around their property and in the crushed gravel roads connecting the rural cluster of homes near theirs. I remember being fascinated by the beauty of the quartz, the layers of mica we found embedded in rocks and in the road, the grey-green lichen growing on many rocks, including the rocks surrounding my great aunt’s fireplace (which she kept alive by periodically spraying them with beer!), the hummingbird feeders, the saltlick for deer, and the many elk antlers my grandpa found. He made buttons from some of them for a knitting shop in town.
Each visit to Colorado included a trip to Charlie Eagle Plume’s—a nearby shop and gallery/museum owned by Charles Eagle Plume, who was a college classmate of my great aunt’s. He was a kind and fascinating man, and I remember him giving my sisters and me arrowheads and once strung seed bead necklaces that we treasured.
One year our trip to Estes Park included a stay in Yellowstone National Park, where I saw the one and only moose I’ve seen in the wild. That and the colors inside of the geysers are my most vivid memories of Yellowstone.
As my sisters and I played outdoors in Colorado and in Wisconsin, we loved singing several songs we’d learned in Girl Scouts. One of our favorites was The Happy Wanderer (I love to go a-wandering along the mountain track / And as I go I love to sing, my knapsack on my back. Valderi, valdera, valderi, valdera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha Valderi, valdera, my knapsack on my back…)To this day, walking in woods, hills, and mountains, and along lakes and streams brings me immense peace and joy. I am still a happy wanderer.
As my grandparents aged, they began spending winters in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I have wonderful memories of the colors, cultures, architecture, and art I got to experience on several visits there to see them.
Looking back now on all of these memories I am warmed by their beauty and fondness and immensely grateful to have had these treasured experiences.
September, 2020
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