My Grandma Wilson had a beautiful yard with flowers, grapevines, an apple tree and a fishpond in it. She enjoyed working in her garden. Grandpa was a railroad man so he got passes to ride on the Santa Fe Railroad. Grandma took advantage of the free trips to come to Denver on the train and go to Elitch's Gardens. Grandpa wasn't much for traveling, so she came by herself and spent the day walking through the gardens and eating a lunch in the picnic grove. Since Grandma pinched pennies (and nickels and dimes) I'm sure she brought her lunch with her. She agreed with the slogan "Not to see Elitch's, is not to see Denver."

It was later that I first went to Elitch's, when my girls were very little. I was overwhelmed with the beauty, it was a wonderful place, a combination of park and carnival, but far better than the little carnivals I enjoyed when I was growing up. In my grown up age the only rides I liked were the merry- go-round, the train, the funhouse and the trip through the mine. Over the years all of my favorite rides disappeared except the good old merry-go-round with its colorful horses and buoyant music.

I'm not as good with a yard as my Grandma was but I do love to look at pretty flowers and Elitch's had the loveliest flowers in the country.

My girls loved Elitch's too and the four of us were close. Since my oldest daughter was born in July we started a tradition of going to Elitch's on her birthday. For several years we went to Elitch's to celebrate.

But we had another tradition, it wasn't quite as cheery but it did give us a lot of laughs. I had no trouble getting to Elitch's, I always managed to get there with no problems, but as soon as we got in the car and headed for home the entrance to the highway hid from me. There we were driving on the frontage road, the highway was in sight but we couldn't figure out how to get onto it. It has changed now but at that time it wasn't marked too clearly. We drove around in circles, glimpsing the highway but never able to find the right road to get onto it. "There it is," someone would holler, "There the highway goes," but we just kept driving. I'm happy to say we never got truly lost but we spent a considerable time trying to get ourselves unscrambled.

Traditions are nice, getting lost isn't so nice, but not being able to find the road as we came home from Elitch's is something we still laugh about.