Life is Full of Surprises

I might as well start this journaling of my travels with the first real trip that I remember.  My family (mom, dad, 2 older brothers, and me) went camping quite often when us kids were kids, but that's not the kind of trip I mean.  The first REAL trip was when my dad retired from the Navy in 1982.  He'd served for 24yrs and we'd been stationed in several different places during that time, but hadn't really gone on vacation that I can recall.  After his retirement we were moving from Williamsburg, VA to Woodbridge, VA and he was starting a new job.  My brothers were old enough to be on their own so weren't moving with us -- they ended up back at home, but that's neither here nor there.

Mom, dad, and I hit the road in late May of 1982.  We were headed cross-country with no specific itinerary other than stopping when we felt like it and making sure we visited with family and friends as we went.  It's only now that I'm older that I can appreciate what a luxury that kind of trip was -- we weren't sure how long we'd be gone or what exactly we'd be seeing and we didn't worry about it.  Or at least I didn't, but then I was only 11.  As much as I'd like to do it again, I just don't think that kind of a trip is really feasible anymore.

Anyway, we left Williamsburg rather late in the day and made it roughly 5 miles down the road and spent the night at the motel where Scott (oldest brother) was the night clerk.  This had the double advantage of at least getting us out of town and we were able to see Scott again before we left.  We drove west into Tennessee and through Knoxville - it was the year the World's Fair was held there and it was crowded.

Our first main stop was in Van Buren, AR to visit with my dad's sister (Aunt Nancy) and her family.  Van Buren has a neat historic district and parts of the mini-series "The Blue and the Grey" starring Stacy Keach were filmed there.  From there we went to Oklahoma City, OK for a quick visit with my mom's aunt and uncle.

We then went through northern Texas and into New Mexico for a stay with mom's sister (Aunt Dorothy), her husband (Miles) and their new baby (another Scott).

In Arizona we stopped at Meteor Crater which was formed 50,000 years ago when a meteorite estimated to be 150 feet across impacted the Earth.  The crater today is 4,000 feet across and has a circumference of 2.4 miles.  Also in Arizona we stopped at the Grand Canyon.  The Grand Canyon was absolutely spectacular.  It's at this point that I have to say I regret being so young on this trip.  I can clearly recall just one view of the Canyon from the visitor's center, but I know we saw so much more.

Our trip then took us through California.  While in CA, Dad took us on a "short-cut" outside of San Jose and we wound up on top of Mt. Hamilton at the Lick Observatory.  While the view was breathtaking, the ride left a lot to be desired -- the road was narrow and had barely enough room for two cars abreast.  The shoulders were practically nonexistant and the drop-off was dizzying.  Dad was taking his half of the road out of the middle and I'm sure other drivers had some colorful words to say about that.  This was to be the first of several of Dad's short-cuts that ended up being the longest distance between two points, but at least it was the only one on this trip.

We drove up the Coastal Highway and into Redwood National Forest.  While there, we drove through a redwood tree at the park's visitor's center.

In Oregon we saw Crater Lake (just stunningly beautiful) and trekked through the Oregon Caves.  We also stayed a couple of days with mom's brother (Uncle Kenny), and his wife (Joy).

Further north into Washington we stayed with the Rogers', family friends of my parents.  I thought it was funny that they had a daughter who was born in VA and they lived in WA, while I was born in WA and lived in VA.

Idaho saw us staying with mom's dad and his 3rd wife.  I can distinctly remember them taking us into Nevada to a little town right on the border, Jackpot.  We went to a casino and while the adults did some gambling, I had to stay in the lobby since I was underage.  Mom and dad lost more feeding me the quarters for the arcade games than they did at the slot machines.  We also dropped in on another of mom's brothers (Gene) and his wife (Margaret) and their kids (Theresa and Karl).  They lived on a small farm near my grandparents.

From there, we went to Yellowstone National Park.  Yellowstone is fascinating.  We saw bison and elk.  And Old Faithful -- amazing.

Further east took us to Mt. Rushmore and then through the Badlands.  While overnighting in SD, mom and dad played a little prank one.  The motel we were at had those beds that vibrate -- they woke me up in the morning with the bed shaking -- I thought it was an earthquake!

Also on the way through SD we stopped at an antique auto museum.  The neatest thing they had was an antique RV, it looked like a motorized stagecoach.  The other thing of note about the museum was that there were bunnies everywhere.

By this time on the trip, we were ready to be home and pretty much just concerned with making good time on the highway, but mom and dad had a surprise in store for me.  While on the road going through Kentucky we'd been seeing signs for the Kentucky Horse Park.  Like most 11year old girls, I was horse crazy and naturally asked if we could stop there.  I was told that we couldn't and of course was disappointed.  As the exit approached, I was chanting to myself "please pull off, please pull off" and was thrilled when we did.  I had a ball, the park had a wide variety of horses breeds.  A "costume" show where they paraded the horses with their riders dressed in clothes appropriate for each breed was a highlight.

While I can remember all of this, the images in my head are fuzzy with age.  This was before I really got into wanting a camera of my own, so I'm left with postcards (I have put them into a scrapbook), but somehow that's not the same as having pictures that I've taken myself.  I would dearly love to be able to retrace our steps and take this trip with my parents again, but it's just not possible.  We've been trying to take a least one road trip a year since my dad retired for good in 2003 and we've managed it so far.  Some of the trips have been just weekend jaunts, but we've done 3 major trips together and we have another big one planned for February of 2008 -- we're snowbirding it down to FL for at least 10 days.

It's while remembering times like this trip that I'm so glad to have my parents still living and mostly able to get out and about.  They're not as spry as they used to be, so we're careful about going places that don't require a lot of walking and/or standing and we have to limit the amount of time we're in the car, but I just treasure the time we have together.