Childhood Vacations

Our family vacations usually consisted of heading to CA every six months or so. When we were really young, I remember going to Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm a couple of times but mostly our trips were just to visit my paternal grandparents, first in Palm Springs and then later in Yucca Valley. 
 

DISNEYLAND – This was back in the day when you had to buy individual tickets to each ride. I remember how better it was when they changed to buying a park pass and you could ride all the rides as many times as possible. My biggest memory was trying to keep up with dad to each ride. He was 6’ tall and wore a cowboy hat and so we’d be trying to go through the crowd and we’d just follow the hat.

PALM SPRINGS, CA – This is where my grandparents lived for a long time and me and my sister lived here the first few years of our lives until my dad got married and we moved to AZ. I don’t know the year but my grandparents bought 5 acres of land in Yucca Valley, CA, about an hour away from Palm Springs.

YUCCA VALLEY, CA – This is the place where most of our vacations happened. Just down the hill was a town called Desert Hot Springs where my dad’s half-brother Larry lived with his wife and two step-daughters. When visiting, we would stop by there and see Larry’s family, until he got divorced. Anyway, this was back in the late 70’s and one of Larry’s step-daughters looked just like Brooke Shields. I’m not sure how I knew about Brooke Shields but I did and the resemblance was uncanny.

My grandparents and my uncle, who was born 4 days before I turned 1, went to the only IFB church in town. The only thing I remember about this church is sitting in the congregation listening to my grandmother sing in the choir and solos. My uncle also went to the Christian academy. I’m not sure when but my grandparents had a falling out with the church because of how the Christian school disciplined their son. 

There were a couple of years when we came to visit that we’d end up going to a brand new, very small Baptist church. After a while, my grandparents quit going to church and they would only go to church when they came to visit us. Since my grandmother hated that I had to wear a suit and tie to church during the summer, I didn’t have to wear them when she came to visit. It felt odd since I was so used to it.

THE CAR RIDE – The cars I remember growing up with had 2x55 AC, meaning 2 windows down going 55 miles per hour. That was the running joke by my dad. Basically, we didn’t have AC in our cars. The vehicle I remember the most is the VW van and it had the tendency of breaking the clutch cable or blowing an engine. During the summer, we would drive through the night to avoid the heat of the day. We played the alphabet car game way too many times to count. Finding a “Q” on the way to CA was always a challenge.

HEADING EAST – After the age of eight or nine, I don’t remember our family ever heading east on vacation. Before then, we made a couple trips back to see both my maternal grandparents. My mother’s parents lived in Rockford, IL and my mom’s parents lived near Albion, MI. I only remember visiting my mom’s parents once. The only thing I remember was that they flattened everything in their trash and they had a burn basket in the back yard where they burned most of their garbage. I thought that was pretty cool. I remember my mom telling me that she used to get dressed in bed because of how cold it was during the winters.

When I was about seven, we took a train ride from Flagstaff, AZ to somewhere. I’m not completely sure where but I believe it was the trip to MI. I remember thinking the train was pretty cool and being able to see through the roof of one of the cars but that’s about it. 

On one of the few trips that didn’t go to CA, we went to CO to meet one of my aunts. I remember catching tomato worms in her garden and using stones to squish them. At seven, this was great fun and since they were big and juicy it made it more fun. While at my aunt’s home in CO, my grandmother and dad sat me down to show me how to play chess. They played a game and then explained why they did what they did and then I got to play a couple games. To this day, chess is one of my favorite games.