“I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues that are in all the other museums.”
We’ll still in the damp, chilly day mode. It’s in the low 50’s and nothing outside my window looks inviting. Earlier, Gracie was frantically barking so I went outside to check. There it was, the rabbit, just sitting where Gracie could see it. That beast has been hanging around my yard for days and driving Gracie crazy. The dog keeps trying to jump the 6 foot fence, but she’s older now and far more muscular so when her paws reach the top of the fence, she can’t pull herself over any more. For that I’m thankful. As for the rabbit, I’m thinking a traditional paella.
I remember car rides with my family. My brother and I each had a back window, his behind my father, mine behind my mother, our sister Sheila was stuck between us, and Moe was in the front with my parents. Poor Sheila had to rest her feet on the big lump in the middle of the backseat floor. The car was always hot in the summer even with all the windows open. Back then, we never had sleek highways, but that was just fine with us. The roads my father took had stuff to look at. I remember seeing red barns and cows in the fields, and I’d yell and point so no one would miss them. The horses we’d see always seemed to have their heads down munching on grass. Once in a while we’d see a deer, and that was the most exciting of all. Usually the car was filled with suitcases and boxes of food as we headed to Maine for the week. We always went to Maine because my father’s friend had a cabin, and we could vacation cheaply. When I was young, I liked it there, but as I got older, I found it boring. By the time I was fourteen, I was begging my parents to leave me at home with friends. They never did.
My dad invented the staycation though he never received due credit. When I was young and money was especially tight, my father and mother planned something for us to do almost every day of my dad’s two-week vacation. We visited museums, went to the lake, the beach, zoos and into Boston to walk the Freedom Trail and ride on the swan boats. Once I remember going to Lexington and Concord. Those were my favorite vacations of all, and from them, I received the most wonderful gifts which have stayed with me all my life. I love museums and visit them everywhere I go. I can’t pass up a historical site and lots of times I stop the car to read the plaques on the rocks along the sides of the road.
On my first weekend in Accra, during training when we were in Koforidua, I went to the National Museum of Ghana. It seemed like the best place to start to learn about my new country.
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May 4, 2012 at 2:16 pm
Sundays were the day for the car ride. The family was bundled in to the Wolseley, which was a step up from the Austin Cambridge, and off we went in to the Surrey country side. The ride had no particular sense of destination, its just what people did on a Sunday afternoon.
I dont really remember how and why it ended, perhaps because of the arrival of Brian Moore and “The Big Match”, I dont know.
Tomorrow was the equivalent of another Christmas in England.
May 4, 2012 at 7:08 pm
My Dear Hedley,
It must have been a law that a family takes its car rides on Sunday though I suspect it had more to do with Saturday being my father’s chore day: the cleaners, the barbers and the yard. Our rides seldom had a destination either.
When we got older, the rides stopped. We had lost our enthusiasm.
Why tomorrow?
May 4, 2012 at 3:36 pm
Sunny and reasonable warm today. I didn’t enjoy it much though because I think I have gotten every possible side effect one can get from the antibiotics I’m taking 🙂 🙂 🙂 But it’s worth it if the pills help.
I mostly fell asleep on longer car drives when I was young 🙂 But we had lots of breaks and leg stretchers. I do remember one when I was going in my best friends fathers car, it was a huge Dodge and it felt like sitting in a battle ship 🙂 🙂 🙂 Most European cars are rather small in comparison 🙂 That was the first time I was in a car with AC too. I was freezing the entire time 🙂 🙂 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
May 4, 2012 at 7:11 pm
Christer,
You could share a bit of that warmth!
I am so sorry this has been the worst week for you. Another one starts on Sunday so maybe it will be a better one!
My father hated to have to stop. If one of us had to go to the bathroom, he’d stop but groused the whole time about it. We usually brought a picnic lunch so that was always a stop. It was fun to be able to stretch our legs.
Will you get better!
May 4, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Staycation . . . I love it. We kids hated the long rides in the car too. Usually it was to Kitty Hawk, NC where my Dad’s friend had a cottage right on the beach. We went often and one summer I was a life guard just south of that house. It brought back memories. Long trips were no fun for the kids.
May 4, 2012 at 7:12 pm
Z&Me,
Nope, we hated long trips especially as my gather was a go and keep going guy. We made it back in one day from Canada and the falls. We slept most of the way as we traveled well into the night.
May 4, 2012 at 7:07 pm
When I was a kid going up in Dallas, in the 1950s, we would drive to New York every June to visit the family. We had an air conditioned car which was a rare sight at that time in New York. My father liked to keep the car cold so my mother wore a sweater while she rode shot gun. My sister and I shared the back seat so no one had to suffer with the hump in the floor. We always arrived in lower Manhattan during the evening rush hour traffic. As we crawled through the lower east side people would point and laugh at us because it was hot and humid. We had the windows rolled up and my mother was wearing a sweater. They could’t imagine an air conditioned car since they probably slept on the fire escape to get cool on hot summer nights.
My dad never took the scenic route and always was concerned about making good time on the journey. The Interstate highway system was just beginning to be built and we had to drive on mostly two lane highways that went through the down town areas of both small and large cities. My dad could pass a truck with precision accuracy on a two lane highway against on coming traffic which gave my mother moments of shear terror. I was lucky enough to have seen a portion of US 66 from Oklahoma to St. Louis from the back seat. That highway was called the “mother road” and carried many families to California during the great depression to find a better life. There was also a popular song by Nat King Cole of the same name.
My sister and I begged to stop at museums and roadside attractions, but dad was always looking at his watch and telling us we had to make Indianapolis by four thirty. I never could figure out what was so important to our vacation that we had to be somewhere by a certain time. We did stop at motels in the early evening to go swimming and spend the night. In the afternoons we would stop in a Howard Johnson’s or a Dairy Queens for ice cream.
Today was a repeat of yesterday’s hot, dry and windy weather.
May 4, 2012 at 7:17 pm
Bob,
Our car was always filled with the six of us. We always fought when someone encroached on our territory. I remember sticking my hand out the window to divert the hot wind to my face as it was really awful driving in the heat. My father didn’t get an air-conditioned car until we were all pretty old.
I remember the Nat King Cole song and have seen programs which follow parts of Route 66 which are still intact. We too had to take the smaller roads like Route 1 as there weren’t major highways. The only good thing was we had stuff to keep us busy looking out the windows.
Your dad and mine were the same type drivers. Time was important as was getting to the destination with the fewest stops. Only on one vacation did we stay in motels, and that was a great trip to the falls, the Eisenhower Locks and a few other neat places.
Today here was just like yesterday too-damp and rainy.
May 4, 2012 at 10:19 pm
Especially enjoyed all the elements today.
May 4, 2012 at 10:48 pm
Thank you, Rowen.
May 4, 2012 at 11:15 pm
Kat,
Did you see where Bobby Vee has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease? I was so saddened to read that! I noticed that you had
posted one of his tunes last month. What a horrible disease.
May 5, 2012 at 10:46 am
Rita,
No, I didn’t read that. I know about Glen Campbell but not Bobby. It is a horrible disease. My neighbor is in the earyl stages, and it saddens me.
May 5, 2012 at 10:38 am
Hi Kat,
Our vacations were either at the farm in Maine where we worked all summer or at my Uncle’s lake cottage in New Hampshire. I loved the farm. It was way out in the middle of woods and the nearest neighbor was a mile down the road. There were bears and lynxes and rattlesnakes and great horned owls. We could shoot tin cans with BB guns. It was great even if we did have to take care of the animals and the vegetable gardens.
The lake cottage was fine as well but boring. I was not allowed to bring a friend so I was stuck with my younger brothers as there were no other young people around. Not so good. The summer before I turned 12 I adamantly refused to go. I must have given an extremely rational argument because my parents let me stay home alone for a week. My father called me from the general store when they got to the town near the lake and that’s the last I heard from them until they got home. We all knew Mrs Calore was next door. She would have bested the Great All-Seeing Eye of Mordor and she would send Mr. Calore over if she thought something was not right. And she would tell my mother.
Today began with a visit from the plumber to fix the leaking toilet. It’s old but functioning and it was less troublesome to fix it than to replace it and less expensive, too.
Enjoy the day!
May 5, 2012 at 10:50 am
Hi Caryn,
I wish my parents had done the same. No one is more miserable to be with than a moping, unhappy teen. I’m sure my parents could have killed me. If they complaines, I always said it was their fault-that never went over too well!
My toilets are original to the house which makes them 35 years old and parts are difficult to come by. When the downatairs toilet kept leaking, I called my plumber. He took a look and said he had just the right part. Out into the yard he went looking on the ground until he found a rock. He put it in the tank on the part which wouldn’t go down.That was about 6 years ago, and it’s still working just fine. He never charged me for the call.