Vacationing with Babe & Loree

 It feels like all we did growing up was move from one base to another, and therefore never went on vacation, but that isn’t true. We DID move a lot, but when I think back, I can distinctly remember some pretty fun vacations that Mom and Dad took us on between all the moves.

The big one when I was very little was a tour of Denmark and Norway in the Red VW camper (I think I was about three). I have no idea the full itinerary, but I know we camped next to a beach (I think near Copenhagen), and we visited a famous museum in Oslo that had a huge Viking boat displayed up on posts. It was glorious!

Back in the States, and living in California, we drove up to Washington to see Mom’s family, through northern California, stopping to see Aunt Jocie in Redwood City, and vising the Redwood forest. We actually drove through the tree back then. That’s also when I sliced my left thumb open trying to whittle on a stick. (I still have the scar). Must have been a long vacation because we spent a lot of time at the beach with all our cousins, and that may be when they bought the beach house from Ken and Carolyn.

Another time, we rented a houseboat on Lake Isabella, due west of Bakersfield, CA. I think we camped for a day or two. That was a lot of fun.

After Dad came back from Vietnam, and before we moved back to George, we drove from Washington to Minnesota to see the relatives on Dad’s side of the family. I remember being at John & Wanda Millers’ house, sitting on the front stoop, and watching a tornado off in the distance. The Moms put a quick stop to that: down to the basement!

In Libya, we weren’t there long enough. In Italy there were three vacations I distinctly remember, though I’m not sure in what order they occurred.

One was a trip to Rome with Grandma Branby when she flew over to visit. Actually the only time I ever remember her visiting us. I think we were there about a week. We took the train down and back, which was another adventure. The most distinct thing that stands out is the tour guide and his very broken english. Very fun and entertaining.

Another time Mom and Dad bought us skis and we all drove over the mountains and spent a week learning to ski in Austria. That was a blast. We were there with a couple other families, so lots of things to do on and off the slopes. The end of the week was a big ski race.

The third vacation was at the beach near Venice. We must have stayed at a hotel right on the water.

After Dad came back from Korea, we moved to North Las Vegas. Dad bought both a Camper and a speed boat.  With the Camper, we drove out to Colorado once or twice and stayed with Don in Snowmass or Basalt. We toured the Maroon Bells, Aspen, Glenwood Springs, and all the places in between. Dave and I went river rafting down the Roaring Fork River. That was a blast.

I think there was a ski trip to Snowmass at least once, because Uncle Don was working at Gene Taylor’s Sporting goods, right on the mountain, so we got some good discounts on rentals.

The move to Luke AFB (Phoenix) pretty much ended the big family vacations for me. To be fair, Dad decided to put in a swimming pool, and that was awesome!

My Senior year was jam-packed with activities, followed by a shortened summer when I was unexpectedly appointed to the Air Force Academy.

My favorite kid’s book

 Growing up I loved books and stories. We did the library summer reading programs at the local libraries wherever we lived: Washington, California, Libya, Italy, etc. It was like shopping for free candy!

When I was really young, we had the hard cardboard books that kids get, which seem to last forever… or get totally destroyed… by dropping  them in puddles, teething on them, spilling drinks or whatever. The Little Engine That Could. The Disney tales, Black Beauty, Gullivers Travels, Grimms Fairy Tales. We had bigger books too… some I ventured into and lost interest pretty easily. Not enough action; characters who didn’t spark interest; boring stories. But others that grabbed you and drug you through it till the very end. The Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, Beverly Cleary stories, Johnny Tremaine.

Once we started school it was the Scholastic Book program. They gave you this four or six page order sheet that had all  these new books that you could order and then take home and keep! Not just use, but read over and over again. I don’t know that I ever found many books I had to repeatedly read, but the idea that they were mine and I could, was pretty awesome!

I think that’s where I ran across my favorite book, though I’m really not sure: Ian Fleming’s “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.” Not the movie version, but the original English version: Two kids have an eccentric inventor father who puts together this strange car, which slowly comes to life when needed. They get involved with smugglers and hoodlums, then get into dangerous situations, and the car, or their dad always finds an interesting way to get them out of it. In the end, they solve a mystery, stop a robbery, and the bad guys go to jail. Everything a 10-year old thinks is really cool.

Pretty sure I was reading Hardy Boys about that time, but  those were teenagers who could ride in cars and motor cycles. The Pott family had  kids my age. They didn’t treat adults like they could be replaced. To me it was very plausible, though I was pretty certain it was weird for a car to fly or sprout floats and cruise across the English Channel like a hover craft.

When the movie came out a year or so later, I enjoyed it, but it felt like a ripoff of Mary Poppins. Interesting story, but not as gritty or edgy as the book, and therefore not as real. It was probably the first time I understood the term “not as good as the book.”