Vacations!

In the days of my childhood, our vacations were spent visiting family in other states. My dad’s folks lived on a farm in northeastern Arkansas. I got to hunt and fish and have all sorts of adventures that a city boy did not get try the rest of the year. Mom’s parents lived in New Jersey, near Trenton. There we got to see lots of historical sites and tourist attractions. I have wonderful memories of trips to both places.
When my wife and I had little girls, we did not have a lot of extra money, so we had to make decisions about how we spent it. Vacation trips seemed like a bit of extravagance we could not afford. But as the girls got older things were a bit better financially and we decided to make some family trips.

In 1976 we made a trip to see my grandparents in New Jersey, stopping along the way to visit historical sites during the Bicentennial. We visited Vicksburg, Montgomery and Richmond, all with Civil War ties. We went to Monticello, Washington D.C., as well as Trenton.


In 1980 we went to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado and to Yellowstone. We have many stories about car troubles and a skunk in a tent and rock climbing and such.

In 1984 we took our best trip, to see the Olympics in Los Angeles. On the way out we saw the Grand Canyon, the London Bridge, which is now in Lake Havisu City, Arizona, and the Joshua Tree National Park. In LA, not only did we see Olympic competitions, including the Gold Medal baseball game between Japan and the US. We also went to Disney Land, Knott’s Berry Farm, Universal Studio, Malibu Beach, and baseball games in Anaheim and San Diego.

We have so many fond memories of those trips with the girls. We have bee blessed to take a few trips with our grandkids too (We were in DC on 9/11 when the attacks took place). We spent some money that was hard to come by, but we firmly believe it was a special investment in our family!

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