Another wedding invitation arrived in the mail today. Summer is the season of love, obviously. The invitation inspired a trip down memory lane. I recalled my own wedding. I always think of the wedding as mine since I paid for it and planned it. Jim was not one bit interested in the colors of the bridesmaids dresses or the type of flowers or the wedding cake design or the type of font on the invitations.
The honeymoon I think of as ours because he did most of the planning and all of the driving. His father was a lover of westerns, so the family traveled out west to see Monument Valley and Yellowstone and the Rocky Mountains. My only vacations were trips to Minneapolis to visit my cousins. They involved much shopping and swimming and card playing.
Jim decided that we would camp to save money, I had never camped before but Jim said it was great fun. My brand new husband would never make a mistake, so I was eager for the trip……a June Honeymoon. Words like romance, passion, pleasure, fun, and adventure filled my mind. We would be driving for hours in the car alone and would have deep intimate conversations. Also Jim said we needed to go shopping. He meant shopping for a camp stove, tent and sleeping bags and cots. He didn’t want his honey to sleep on the cold hard ground! That kind of shopping was well and good and necessary. I sneaked in a secret shopping trip for new clothes and cute shoes and make-up and perfume. This was our honeymoon, and I wanted to look my best.
We practiced setting up the tent in the yard so we could do it quickly and correctly. We were natural teammates. We got up at 2 a.m., packed the cooler with sandwiches, and took off for the West. I like to sleep in but Jim explained we could beat the traffic this way, and I could sleep in the car. He made perfect sense. I loved his organizational skills! He said we had a schedule to keep so we would drive four hours straight before a stop. I asked about bathroom breaks and he told me “to hold it.” I didn’t like his tone!
The first day was fun as long as I didn’t drink many liquids. We had a picnic lunch, stopped early at a KOA Campground, put up our tent perfectly and quickly, and cooked canned beef stew on our new camp stove. I didn’t think the stove worked very well because my stew was cold, but I would never be a nagging wife. I didn’t sleep well because I wasn’t use to the cot. We got up early again and had beans for breakfast (just like real cowboys). We packed our sandwiches in the cooler and left in the dark so we could beat the traffic. I was really going to sleep in the car today.
The Wild West takes a long, long time to get to from southeastern Minnesota so we developed a routine and each day was much like the first. I was not sleeping well on the cot or in the car. I started to hate beans and cold meat sandwiches. At one campground I met a woman in the bathroom who said she had almost stepped on a snake. From then on I insisted that Jim accompany me to the bathroom. He grumbled about me having to go in the middle of night and laughed at my fear of snakes. Perhaps my husband was not the kind and considerate person who had so recently courted me! Well, I would take the high ground until we got home from this honeymoon, and then consult with my mother. Remember, this was the old days before cell phones.
Just before we got to the mountains, Jim announced we were behind schedule and we would eat our cold meat sandwiches in the car. Whose schedule was this and where was it posted? I was too sleep deprived to complain, and I had stopped eating cold meat sandwiches anyway. However, this meant one less bathroom break for me. Fuming inside, I decided when we camped just before the Grand Teton Mountains, we would have a serious talk. Just seeing the Grand Tetons in the distance cheered me up. Soon after that we would be at Yellowstone, and I would wear another pair of my cute new sandals.
Just as were ready to put up our tent, a storm came out of nowhere. It is hard to put up a tent in the pouring rain and wind. We did get it up, but both of us were soaked. I realized that the cots and sleeping bags were damp and smelled not good. I sprayed them with my perfume. It didn’t help much. We ate my leftover sandwiches for supper. Then the lightning started. Jim said we had to take the tent down and pack up and sleep in the car! Everything was soaking wet, including us. No one slept in the car. I was too busy sharing my grievances in a loud voice, and Jim was too busy shushing me. (As if my voice was louder than thunder and lightning!)
The next day we checked into a motel. We showered and slept on clean sheets in air conditioning. We went out for a nice meal in a restaurant. My blisters from my cute new shoes started to heal. My sluggish digestive system got back on track. We stayed another night so we could get our relationship back on track. We went swimming in the motel pool and had breakfast in the motel. This is what I call a HONEYMOON. We were perfect teammates; we just had to learn to communicate and compromise! This a recipe that both of us like.
Green Beans and Mushrooms
1 1/2 lb. fresh green beans, trimmed
4 strips thick sliced bacon, chopped
8 oz. button mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup minced shallots
1/3 cup white wine vinegar
1 tsp. salt
Blanch green beans in large pot boiling water; drain.
Saute bacon until crisp.
Add mushrooms and shallots to the pan and continue cooking until caramelized.
Deglaze pan with vinegar, scraping up any brown bits, and cook until vinegar evaporates. Toss in green beans and season with salt.
Serves 6.
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