ROAD TRIPPIN'

Many families have been taking vacations this month, getting those trips in before school starts. Our school starts later this week. At the beginning of August I watched my neighbors across the street packing their new camping trailer for their 2 week vacation to Montana. They have 8 kids and expecting the nine before long. I can't imagine taking that many kids in a camper! Plus they put several bikes and 2 kayaks in that trailer. It is 37 feet long, with two slide-outs, and the bedroom has a king size bed! I think this is called "glamping." The front end came with a set of bunk beds but that isn't enough beds for all those kids. That area is big for packing cargo, so they put together some smaller bunk beds for the little kids, and still had room for all those bikes. The kayaks went in through the bedroom door and I couldn't imagine where they could put them other than on top of the bed, but then remembered these trailers always have storage under the beds, and 2 kayaks probably fit under that bed.

Some time back I was going through some old photos and ran across the pictures I took on a trip to California with my parents and Mom's sister and her husband from Illinois. That was just before school started in the 1950's.

These pictures show what motels looked like in those days. At least these are the ones we stayed in, and they were not the familiar chain motels like Holiday Inn, Super 8, Motel 6. My parents always picked motels that had a kitchenette as we made our suppers and breakfasts at the motel. No eating at fast food places. They were few and far between in those days.

Here is one that we stayed in and it was pretty modern as it had a swimming pool.

This is another one. It doesn't look like there was a swimming pool here but at least had a nice area with lawn chairs and picnic tables.

And another one. Looks like Dad is loading the car, getting ready to get back on the road. Uncle Lyman is behind the screen door. I don't remember this but that looks like Uncle's car as we didn't have one like this.

Mom and Aunt Clara are either making supper or cleaning up after we had eaten.

Chowing down.

Hiding behind the wall is my dad, then my mom, Aunt Clara and Uncle Lyman.

Then it is time to wash dishes and clean up before getting some sleep, then repeat the next day. The only town I remember staying at was Cheyenne. Wyoming. There was a rodeo taking place behind the motel that night.

As we were driving through a larger city, my uncle was driving and he got pulled over by the police. He was careful to follow the speed limit so couldn't imagine why he was stopped. The policeman told him he was going too slow and impeding traffic! It must have been rush hour or something. At least he didn't get a ticket.

It's too bad that we didn't keep a diary of the places where we stayed like Mom did on their trip before I was born. I wrote about that  here. That is all I remember about that trip. I don't even remember the trip back home so it must not have been eventful.