As noted in previous segments, our family vacation trips as the kids were growing up usually involved visits with
Texas relatives. The exceptions, while
living in Abilene, were visits to Georgia in 1961 and 1962 with Twila and her
family, before she and her three boys moved back to Texas in 1963 following the
death of her first husband (John Wakefield).
We continued regular visits with relatives after moving to Little
Rock. Perhaps the biggest of those
visits was in late July, 1966 when we spent about a week with Twila’s family in
Austin during her pursuit of a doctorate at the University of Texas; by that
time she was remarried (to Hugh Smith, a fellow doctoral candidate). Both she and Hugh were involved with school,
so Arlette and I entertained both sets of kids (her three and our three),
taking them (1) to nearby swimming pools, (2) inner tube floating on the
Guadalupe River at New Braunfels, and (3) to Houston one evening to watch the
Astros play the Mets in the Astrodome (Norm was the only one of Twila’s boys
who went with us on the Houston venture). Our last “field trip,” to the top of the University tower, was
scheduled for Monday, August 1; Arlette and I decided, however, that we should
plan to leave Austin Monday morning for a visit with Odessa relatives (her
parents, plus her brother and his family), so we advanced the tower venture to
Saturday, July 30. We were on top of
the tower at noon Saturday, 48 hours before Charles Whitman started his 17-person killing spree on and
from the tower; on Monday, as we heard radio reports of the 96-minute rampage,
we were thankful for our changed plans, that we weren’t on the tower with six
kids in tow at the time we had originally planned, the time Charles Whitman
chose for his massacre.
◊◊◊
We took our first “real” family vacation (with destinations other than
relatives’ homes) in 1970, when we rented a Winnebago D-24 motorhome for a three-week trip “out west.” Arlette and I had wanted to try RVing for
several years as we saw ever-increasing numbers of recreational vehicles on the
highways. We subscribed to MotorHome
Life and Trailer Life, prowled dealerships to see RV choices, and
visited campgrounds to observe them in use.
We felt ready for the real experience by 1970, so arranged a motorhome rental
and planned our first RVing expedition.
I picked up the motorhome at Fred & Jack Trailer Sales after
leaving work on a mid-July Friday. We
loaded it that evening and the next day, then left home on Sunday morning. We reached Hope shortly before eleven
o’clock, stopped for morning worship at the First Baptist Church, then traveled
onward to Irving for a brief visit with Arlette’s Grandmother Gaines. We “camped” Sunday night in my parents’
Tolar driveway, then parked on the street in front of Arlette’s parents’ house
in Odessa Monday night, showing off our “home on wheels” at each stop.
Our
inexperience at RVing revealed itself in Odessa, when the refrigerator
defrosted overnight. I planned to have
it checked at the first RV service center we came across as we moved onward on
Tuesday, but it was cold again when we stopped for a midmorning break at a
roadside picnic area. I then looked at
the manual and saw that absorption-type refrigerators must be kept level to
operate properly; we had been unlevel when parked on the street in front of
Arlette’s parents’ house.
Traveling northwestward from Odessa, we hit I-40 at Clines Corners,
passed Albuquerque, and reached Gallup shortly after dark; we “landed” for the
night on a vacant lot beside a service station on the western edge of town,
where another motorhome soon joined us.
We toured Arizona’s Petrified Forest and the nearby Painted Desert the next day, visited the giant Meteor
Crater, then headed for the north rim of the Grand Canyon; nightfall caught us at
Gray Mountain, where we parked the RV on a large open tract right at town. Two more RVs joined us before bedtime.
We went on to the North Rim on Thursday, spent an hour or two viewing
spectacular scenery, then, heading further northwest, drove through Zion
National Park; we turned southwestward in
late afternoon. We found no RV parks
before reaching Las Vegas shortly before midnight, at which time the temperature
was one hundred degrees. Having had no
supper, we stopped at a fast food place before going on to a campground near
Hoover Dam.
The kids
saw nickel slot machines in the foyer of the fast food emporium, and wondered how they
worked, so I put a nickel in a slot, pulled the lever, and won nothing. Except for “hull gull” games at Acton school,
that was my lifetime gambling experience.
We headed for California after seeing Hoover Dam Friday morning. The
late-morning desert temperature was 116 degrees. The cab air-conditioner failed as we crossed the desert, but the roof
unit (powered by an Onan generator) worked, so Arlette and the kids stayed
toward the rear, under its downdraft; the driver’s compartment remained quite
warm.
We stayed at the Escondido KOA Kampground our first night in
California, arriving in time for the kids to fish in a campground pond. While I was still “hooking up,” Terry came
back to the RV, dragging a small fish she’d caught, wanting me to take it from
the hook. I removed the fish and we
threw it back in the pond, but I doubt if it survived the trauma.
The
Escondido KOA was managed by a nice couple whose accents sounded Germanic; the
lady, in speaking of our rented Winnebago motorhome, pronounced the name
“Winnie-ba-goo.” That became the RV’s nickname for the rest
of our trip.
We visited the San Diego Zoo on Saturday, camped that night at San
Clemente State Beach, visited Lakewood’s First
Baptist Church the next morning, spent Sunday afternoon and early evening at
Disneyland, then drove on to Carpenteria State Beach. Carpenteria was a planned stop, for Virgil had suggested we see
Earl and Mamie Goforth while in the area, so we visited a while with them
before traveling onward.
[Earl
(the oldest of Virgil’s brothers) and Mamie had lived at Acton early in their
married life, then spent the rest of their lives in Oregon and California;
Mamie had been my mother’s piano teacher at Acton.]
We traveled US 101 through San Francisco and the redwood forests; at
Crescent City we angled toward Spokane, camping the first night at a state park
on the Rogue River, near Grant’s Pass. We
arrived well before dark, so the kids wanted to fish while I set up camp and
Arlette cooked supper. They hadn’t
returned when supper was ready, so I went looking for them and found them still
fishing, not at the river, but in the river. All three were waist deep in the cold water,
still in their clothes. They had great
fun, but caught no fish.
We stopped by Crater Lake and Diamond Lake the next day, then stayed overnight at a mobile
home park just south of the Columbia River, near The Dalles. At Spokane late the next morning we turned
southeastward, in the general direction of home. We ate lunch beside Lake Coeur d’Alene, Idaho and arrived in
Butte, Montana in late afternoon, July 31.
Driving along US 90 that afternoon we had traveled downhill continuously
for a 34-mile stretch, beside a mountain stream. Fantastic!
The temperature was thirty-six degrees when Arlette and I woke up at
six o’clock the next morning (August 1) – quite a change from Las Vegas a few
days earlier! Without waking the kids,
I disconnected the RV from park facilities and we followed US 90 on eastward to
Livingston, then took US 89 south along the Yellowstone River. We stopped at a scenic spot, Arlette cooked
bacon and eggs for breakfast, and we ate beside the sparkling waters.
We toured roughly half of Yellowstone National Park, camped that night at a
Jackson Hole KOA, then continued south toward Rock Springs, where we took I-80
eastward; nightfall caught us a ways east of Laramie at a high and windy
roadside rest area that welcomed overnighters.
The next day we followed I-80 on to its junction with I-25 at Cheyenne,
where we turned south.
At Loveland, Colorado we detoured west to Rocky Mountain National Park where,
at twelve thousand feet
altitude, Marty and I had a snowball fight in snow still unmelted from the
previous winter/spring. We left the
national park near its southwest extremity, spent that night at a campground on
Lake Granby, then hit US 40 the next morning at Granby and took it into Denver,
where we again turned south on I-25. We
visited the Air Force Academy and Colorado Springs as we moved southward.
We rode
the inclined railway at Manitou Springs. As we started the downhill trip the guide told us we shouldn’t
fear loss of control of the car on the steep (fifty-five degree) incline, that
it had a backup braking system should the main braking system fail, and that if
both sets of brakes failed there were two springs at the bottom to stop us –
Manitou Springs and Colorado Springs.
We stopped overnight at a noisy, overcrowded commercial RV park in
Pueblo, resting little. We made up some
of the lost sleep the next day, when we napped several hours at Lake Walsenburg
before restarting our homeward journey.
We camped that night at Clayton Lake in northeastern New Mexico.
We detoured from major highways the next day, to go by White Deer, Texas
for a short visit with Mr. and Mrs. Winburn Baten (with whom I stayed part of
the summer of 1947 while working in the area, along with their son, G.O., one
of my college roommates). I enjoyed
seeing the Batens again (after twenty-three years), introducing my family to
them, and eating the cold watermelon they shared with us.
We stopped overnight at a small town in
western Oklahoma, then came on home the next day. We had been gone nineteen days, had traveled 6,359 miles (mostly in
twelve states outside of Arkansas), staying at a different location each
night. The kids declared it to be the
best vacation trip we’d ever had – perhaps because it was the sole “vacation
only” trip we’d ever taken.
◊◊◊
The 1970 RVing vacation was so
enjoyable we decided to head west again in 1973. We rented a nearly-new “Winnie-ba-goo” D-24, then Arlette, Terry, Marty and I took off to see some of the
sights we had bypassed the first trip.
Our itinerary also included a visit with Vicky and her husband (they had
married in college, and were then living in Sacramento).
Our travel was slowed early on by a mysterious mechanical malady. I didn’t recognize the first symptom of
trouble (inability to set the cruise control), but knew everything wasn’t
exactly right when the engine suddenly died before we’d traveled twenty
miles. It restarted as soon as I turned
the ignition key to the “START” position, so I didn’t worry then, but the same
thing happened twice more before we stopped for lunch. Intermittent failures continued throughout
the afternoon, but I couldn’t believe anything was seriously wrong, for the
engine purred smoothly and powerfully between lapses, and restarted quickly
after each failure. Arlette wasn’t as
sanguine as I, but I told her everything was probably O.K., and noted that,
although the problem was annoying, we hadn’t been seriously delayed because of
it.
Arlette’s worries, however, were justified; by late afternoon the
engine became more difficult to restart after its periodic cessations. Once, near Oklahoma City, it wouldn’t
restart for several minutes; it would fire, but wouldn’t continue running. I removed the engine cover and air filter,
peered through vapor into the carburetor as we cranked the engine, and
concluded that a defective fuel pump was the most likely cause of our
problem. Fortunately, the engine
finally restarted and we moved on.
Arlette wanted to stop in Oklahoma City for repairs, but I reminded her
that no garages would be open at 6:00 PM on Saturday, nor would any be open over
the weekend, and suggested we travel on until Monday, then have a mechanic
check out the problem. I was concerned,
but not overly so.
We camped that night a few miles south of I-40, off US 281, at Red Rock
Canyon State Park. The park was cool
and quiet, and a predawn rain early Sunday cleaned and refreshed our little
world. Life was great; mechanical
problems were nearly forgotten.
We decided to drive until midmorning Sunday, stop for worship at a
church along the way, eat lunch, then continue westward. That I donned my churchgoing attire before
leaving the campground indicated my confidence that Winnie’s periodic engine
failures weren’t of major significance.
However, my faith received an early jolt; the engine died just as we
crested the steep drive out of the canyon.
Fortunately, it restarted fairly quickly, and we were soon rolling
westward.
In spite of several engine stops/restarts enroute, we reached Elk City
in time for morning worship at the First Baptist Church. After church we decided to top off our
gasoline tanks before leaving town, so we could travel the rest of the day
without refueling. We found a station
and filled both tanks, but could move no further; the engine wouldn’t start. The attendant removed the engine cover and
air filter, observed vapor fogging from the carburetor, and declared the fuel
pump to be defective, causing vapor lock.
Parts stores were closed on Sunday, so a replacement pump couldn’t be
acquired before the next morning. The
mechanic/attendant towed us onto a graveled side area, where we waited until a
new pump was obtained and installed Monday.
Although not
pleased about the delay, we were glad the engine hadn’t quit “for good” Sunday
morning while we were still in Red Rock Canyon. The trouble of getting the motorhome out of the canyon and to a
distant mechanic might have seriously dampened our travel enthusiasm.
We were back on I-40 by late Monday morning, crossed the state line in
about an hour, and were making good time across the rolling Texas panhandle countryside
that afternoon when the engine began cutting out again. It died on the outskirts of Amarillo and
refused to restart. I still believed
the problem involved fuel supply (perhaps the fuel line was too close to engine
heat at some point, causing the gasoline to vaporize), so I crawled under the
rig to look, but could find no places where the line touched the engine or was
exposed to any source of excessive heat.
Our rental representative had told us to call him if we experienced
difficulties, so I called Little Rock from a nearby restaurant, described the
problem, and received instructions for dealing with the situation. He suggested I hold the ignition key between
the “ON” and “START” positions after the engine fired, to see if it would
continue running; if it would, I should hold the switch in that position, drive
to the local Dodge dealership, and let them diagnose the problem. Fortunately, his suggestion worked.
Driving to downtown Amarillo with one hand on the key at all times
required some dexterity, but I managed.
The Dodge service manager listened to our story, decided that
replacement of the ignition switch and harness was required, and soon had a
technician at work on it. The new
harness was spliced in and we were on our way by 5:00, confident all was now
well.
We decided to drive to Tucumcari before stopping for the night, to make
up for lost time. Less than an hour out
of Amarillo the engine recommenced its alternating life and death routines. When, true to pattern, it finally died and
wouldn’t restart, we knew what to do - but we were 75 miles from Tucumcari and
the nearest Dodge dealer. We drove the
75 miles holding the ignition key between the “ON” and “START” positions. One’s fingers tired quickly, but the
ignition switch was in such position that we could alternate holders, so Marty
and I took turns at the task.
We
encountered a heavy rainstorm. At most
times we would have welcomed cool moisture in a land where rains are few and
far between, but not on this occasion, for the RV headlights and most
accessories wouldn’t function with the ignition switch in the abnormal
“halfway” position; wipers wouldn’t operate, so the windshield was
blurred. The rain was a localized
squall, so we drove out of it after about fifteen minutes and reached a
Tucumcari campground with daylight to spare.
We were at the Tucumcari Dodge dealer’s service entrance by opening
time the next morning, where several technicians were grouped near the door,
drinking coffee. The man to whom I
described the problem could envision no cause other than the ignition system,
and believed the switch installed in Amarillo the previous afternoon had to be
defective. Obtaining a replacement from
Albuquerque would take four days.
In groping for an alternative, I said I supposed we could drive on to
Albuquerque holding the ignition switch in the position used to reach
Tucumcari, although that was hard on the fingers. Another technician joined the conversation at that point, noting
that maintaining the switch in that position could be harder on the starter
than on my fingers, for the electric current continuously bleeding into the
starter could burn it up. He said, “Let me have a look,” stepped into the rig,
removed the engine cover, took a quick look and said, “I’ll bet your cruise
control doesn’t work, either.”
I verified the accuracy of his conjecture and asked how he knew.
“The lead to the ballast resistor is disconnected. I’ll plug
it back and that should cure all your troubles.”
“How much do I owe you?”
“Not a thing. I didn’t have to
repair anything.”
I
thanked him, got back in the RV, and we headed for Flagstaff, where we spent
the night in the attractive, pine-forested Kit Carson Campground.
We
turned north the next morning, toward the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Occupants of a passing car signaled us to
stop shortly before we reached the Canyon, then told us we had lost our spare
wheel and tire a few miles back; we retraced our route, and, fortunately, saw
the spare some distance off the road where it had stopped rolling. Unable to find the lug nut, we couldn’t
remount the spare, so put it in the bathtub, toured the South Rim, then bought
a replacement nut after we exited the Canyon, at a hardware store in Williams.
An incident at
a Canyon overlook provoked a small family dispute and provided still-remembered
humor. A small boy wanted to join his
dad, who had ventured down the side of the canyon below the overlook; his
mother wanted him to stay with her, where he was safer, and his dad tried to
dissuade him by saying what sounded to Marty and me as “It stinks down here.”
Arlette and Terry contended he said, “There’s snakes down here.”
“It stinks down here” is more grammatically correct than “There’s snakes
down here,” but I must admit that snakes would scare a small boy more than
would bad odors.
We stopped at an RV park in
Kingman about dark. Having no site at which
we could hook up, the park attendant supplied me with an extension cord to
which I could connect an adaptor and get power to our rig. Our heavy-drawing air-conditioner heated the
connection to the point that the adaptor was melted the next morning; I can’t
imagine why circuit breakers, either in the park or our rig, didn’t “pop” with
the overload.
After uneventful travel across
western Arizona and California the next day, we finally reached the Pacific
coast. We camped one night at Point
Mugu State Park, then returned the next day to Los Angeles
via Thousand Oaks (Marty and I wanted to see California Lutheran College at Thousand
Oaks, where the Dallas Cowboys did their preseason training). California Highway 23 between the coast and
Thousand Oaks wound over and around mountains; maintaining control of our
large, top-heavy vehicle was a bit difficult on the curving steep descents, but
we managed, saw Thousand Oaks, and arrived back in Los Angeles by late morning.
Having seen nothing of Los
Angeles during our 1970 trip, we decided to check out sights around
Hollywood. We purchased a “Homes of the
Stars” directory and drove around looking at places belonging to familiar “names.” Marty and Terry were properly impressed with
stars’ homes, but their excitement peaked that afternoon while shopping at a
supermarket on Santa Monica Boulevard.
We had parked the RV between the supermarket and a coin-operated
laundry, enabling us to restock on both groceries and clean clothing. Arlette and I did the laundry, then she and
the kids went to shop for groceries, while I stayed with the RV. A few minutes later the kids came running
back, to tell me they had seen Paul Lynde (star of a TV comedy show we liked), and wanted me to come see him
– in sandals, wearing bracelets, with a purse slung over his shoulder. I went with them, verified their sighting,
then returned to the RV. Mr. Lynde left
the store soon after I saw him inside, walked to a Mercedes sports coupe near
our RV, loaded his purchases therein, and drove off; when Arlette and the kids
returned I told them I’d seen him leaving.
We consulted our directory to the homes of the stars, found his address,
and drove there. We were a bit disappointed
that it wasn’t like the fancy stars’ homes we’d seen earlier (it appeared to be
a large garage apartment), but reasoned that a bachelor really didn’t need a
big nice place.
The day was well advanced, so
we began making our way toward Los Angeles International Airport, where we
planned to pick up Vicky and her husband, who were flying down from their home
in Sacramento. Our trip across town
included a stop at a sporting goods store on Sepulveda Boulevard; Marty had
seen an advertisement (at a good price) of a tennis racquet he wanted. (He purchased the racquet, and used it in
Sacramento the next week, when he and I played two or three times at a nice
city park.)
Our rendezvous at LAX went off
as scheduled, so the six of us headed immediately toward the high Sierras. We dry-camped overnight on a level spot at
the top of a small hill overlooking the highway somewhere between Los Angeles
and Sequoia National Park (in
the vicinity of Bakersfield, as I remember), then, over the next two days,
visited both Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks.
We went on to Sacramento after seeing the parks, where we stayed four
days before starting back eastward, with Salt Lake City as our next major
objective.
We reached Salt Lake City late on a Friday afternoon, and went to a
mobile home park that accepted overnighters, where we hoped to stay two
nights. I stopped in the park driveway,
registered at the office, and returned to move the RV to our assigned space,
but nothing happened when I turned the ignition switch to the “Start”
position. I returned to the office,
reported my problem, and was told to stay in the driveway overnight, that I
could contact a nearby Dodge dealership the next morning.
Arlette cooked supper, we ate, and went to bed early, planning to
contact the Dodge repair shop as soon as it opened Saturday morning. I tried starting the engine soon after
arising the next morning, expecting nothing to happen, but, oddly enough, it
started, so we didn’t have to call the Dodge shop, but we decided to take the
RV there anyway, to have it checked.
The problem was a defective neutral safety switch, which was replaced
quickly, and we were able to do our planned activities (primarily seeing things
around Mormon Square, visiting the Mormon visitor center, and listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s Saturday evening
practice).
We found a Southern Baptist church, so went there for Sunday morning
worship. The service was typically
Baptist, so I remember nothing in particular about it – except for the hymn of
commitment. The music leader announced
the song number, but tried to sing a different hymn tune than was played by the
pianist; he announced the number for C.H.A. Mahan’s hymn tune to “Take My Life,
and Let It Be,” but tried to sing Wm. B. Bradbury’s hymn tune for the same
words. With his singing one tune and
the pianist playing another I was reminded of the blackbird melodies we kids used to sing at Acton school.
We had seen the things for which we’d stopped in Salt Lake City and
were beginning to run short of vacation time, so hit the road Sunday
afternoon. We continued on I-80 to its
intersection with I-25 at Cheyenne, dropped southward on I-25 to Denver, then
followed I-70 eastward to Kansas City, where we headed south toward home,
stopping by Bolivar, Missouri for a night with Twila and Hugh. We “camped” between Salt Lake City and
Bolivar at nice rest areas along Wyoming and Kansas highways.
Our next RV trip occurred the
following summer (1974), after Terry’s July 14 marriage to Gregg Greenway.
Arlette’s mother and dad had asked Arlette and me to take vacation time
and go to Canada with them after the wedding; we agreed, so they came to Little
Rock in their RV.
We left a day or two after the
wedding, heading straight north through Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota. The trip north was generally unremarkable,
except for one night spent at a Minnesota state park on the St. Croix River,
where deer flies were so thick at dusk one couldn’t stay outside; the flies had
good reason to be there, for during the night I woke up, looked out, and
counted fourteen deer grazing on a nearby grassy area.
We turned slightly northwest
at Duluth, spent a night at International Falls, crossed into Canada, and
headed east to Thunder Bay; the scenery, with dozens of natural lakes, was superb. Arlette particularly enjoyed a visit to an
amethyst mine (amethyst is her birthstone, and “Ontario’s Official
Mineral”).
Her mother bought a piece of amethyst at the
mine, from which she later (at age 78) cut and faceted a setting for a birthstone
ring. Arlette had the setting
professionally mounted in 14-carat gold.
We followed Canada 17 around
the north shore of Lake Superior to
Sault Ste. Marie, with a side trip to Lake Nipigon. After a couple of days seeing the sights around “the Soo,” which
included a train ride into the Canadian interior and a boat ride through the
locks between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes, we came back into the
United States and followed US 31 along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, picked
up I-55 south of Chicago and headed home.
The trip took about two weeks, and was a bargain. Arlette’s parents provided the RV and paid
for campground spaces; we paid for gasoline and groceries. All of us saw country we had never before seen,
at moderate cost.