Vacations

I am now researching vacation options for next October.  I will be retired then (that is another "looking Back" story)  as always, as I research and plan a new vacation, I look back and remember past vacations.

As a child growing up, most of our family vacations were linked to my Dad's Navy two week training.  We would go along, stay in a motel, and tour the areas while he went to his training.  Being in the Navy, most of the places we went were on a coast or gulf area where there were ships.  Some of the places we went where, San Diego, New Orleans, Norfolk, Savannah, DC area (Naval Academy is close by) just to name a few.  We would spend time on the beaches if there were any, tour the historic sights in the area, and in general, have a lot of fun.  I remember most of the time when Dad got his dismissal orders, he would get them at midnight and we would start right home then, driving all night.  This may be why now, I don't like driving late into the night.  I always want to get a room in the early evening and relax, getting up early in the morning to continue the drive.

Some more "family" type vacations were taken after Don and I married and had Jennifer and Kelly.
One of the first was a trip to Colorado with Mike and Mary, Scott and Eric.  They were young school aged children at the time.  Since all 4 children are about the same age, they had a lot of fun with each other.  Jennifer was the only girl but I have to say she did keep up with the boys.  Mike and Mary had borrowed a van from Mom and Dad  and pulled their little trailer out there.  We had our pop up camper and pulled it with our LTDII that we had at the time.  We camped at a KOA campground overlooking the mountain peaks across the valley.  Such a beautiful view to wake up to every morning and go to sleep by at night.  We would all pile into the van and explore the mountains all day, driving up to some of the easy passes etc...

Another "family" type vacation was when Jennifer and Scott were 12 years old and Eric and Kelly were just younger.  We went with Mom, Dad, Mike, Mary, and all the kids to Yellow Stone Park.  We camped in a campground just outside the park... We still had the pop up at this time.  Again we would all pile in the van and explore the area.  When you get 10 people in a van, 4 being tweens.... you can always count on an adventure.  We had a lot of fun viewing the animals and seeing all the sights there were to see there.  We saw buffalo, moose, bears (black and grisley) elk .....
We also had our share of car trouble on this trip... the van broke down a couple of times stranding us in some spots.  (just made for more stories) Now that Mom and Dad are older and don't travel with us anymore, I love thinking back to a time when they could go with us and enjoy fun times with us.
More to come later....