Barbara and I decided to take our
first long trip. It was absolutely, more so than all others, on a
shoestring. This was a very long time ago, before man walked on the
moon, when Barbara and I were footloose and fancy free, son Corey was
yet just a few dozen cells, multiplying rapidly, daughter Kinley was
yet only a distant but hopeful dream. When Walmart was still just a
single store, gas was 28 cents a gallon, Barbara was still cold
natured, thus our home was still warm and comfy in the wintertime,
(though that was soon to change forever.) The first, With many more
to come.
Our funds were truly meager, yet
we owned a nearly new Corvair, freshly paid off. Our available funds
amounted to a few pennies one side or the other of $200.
My oldest brother lived in the
outskirts of Los Angeles, while my next older brother, 14 years on the
downhill slide side of me, lived in the mountains of Montana. Could
we visit them both, see the sights in between, and get back to
Fayetteville on our tiny stash of cash? We decided to find out. Now,
shoestring travel, in its purest form, (cheapest) is, stay with
relatives as long as they will want to put up with us.
We estimated their probable time
tolerance level, and headed out one day in June 1968, on what should
be about a two week trip.
The next day we planned to see the
Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest, many other sights yet unseen by
our virgin eyes, and wind up at the Grand Canyon. We arrived at the
Grand Canyon late, about midnight, tired but happy. Unfortunately,
all the campsites were taken, but we did manage to find a nice little
spot, though a bit smelly, right between the garbage cans and the
dumpster.
We saw the Grand Canyon in all its
glory the next day. As we were about to get on the park tour bus, the
woman behind us took her customary long, deep drag on her cigarette,
and flipped it back out the door. The lady driver was livid. "You
go right back out there and pick that up!" she said. "How
can I ever find it out there in that mess?" the woman protested,
pointing to the vast array of butts already there. "You just get
out there and pick up any one of them," the driver replied. The
woman, totally embarassed and humiliated, complied.
Needless to say, that very large,
colorful hole in the ground was breathtaking. At one stop, at the
head of the seven mile trail to the bottom, hikers who had just
walked out of the canyon were lying around, totally done in. As they
say, "7 miles down, 77 miles back up."
By late morning, we were headed on
west. Getting into the Rocky mountains, we just simply could not
believe the majesty of what we were seeing. And, unbelievably to us,
many were capped, still, by patches of snow.
Late in the afternoon, we looked
for another roadside park. Each one was dry, almost treeless, with no
place to hide our tent, and overan with small groups of Indians,
sitting about. Some of the men looked at Barbara long and hard. Were
they thinking how good that long, beautiful hair would look, hanging
from their belt, or did they have something else entirely in mind?
Either way, this was no place to
be camping, and we got back in the car and kept pressing westward.
Arriving in Los Angeles in the
middle of the night, we drove slowly along that mass of endless
streets trying to follow Harry's directions, but with little luck. I
started to change lanes, noticed lights coming up behind me, and
jerked back into the lane. Immediately, his blue lights came on.
Roadweary as I was, I pulled over to the left side of he road, the
closest point. As I emerged from the car, his loudspeaker bellowed,
"Get back in that car, and pull over to the curb!" I
quickly complied. He walked up, still not in a friendly mode. "What
do you think you're doing?" he demanded. "Well, I really
don't know. I guess I must be lost as a goose." Hearing my
Arkansas talk, he sensed what the problem was, and changed to a
friendly, helpful tone. He directed me to our destination.
Arriving at Harry's complex, it
was around 1 AM. Not sure of his apartment number, but knowing I was
very close, I took my best guess, and knocked loudly. After a while,
a sleepy man's voice said, louldy, "Go away!" He was not in
a neighborly mood, and was not Harry. As it turned out, Harry lived
next door, and was much more welcoming to us. Asking if we had much
trouble finding him, I told him we did fairly well until the man next
door got a little upset with us. "No man lives next door. Only a
woman," he said, grinning.
Harry treated us like royalty for
several days. He even showed us some of his work sites. Harry travels
all over Southern California daily, servicing large earth moving
machines, and he crosses the LA area daily, many times, in his large truck.
Years later, when we finally got him back to Arkansas, he would never
step foot into California again, for the rest of his life.
He showed us Hollywood,
Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, and many other fantastic sights of LA
Sensing we were on a very thin shoestring, he almost never allowed
me to pull my, also thin, wallet.We got to know, again, all of my
California aunts and cousins, some I had met, most I had not. My mother's flock of sisters all headed to the bright lights of California early, mostly before I was born.
We headed for Montana, cutting
across Nevada, into Utah, and camped somewhat short of the Grand
Teton National Park. Some sort of furry little animals, a bit smaller
than a barn rat, spent the entire night running up on our tent, then
sliding back down. Hard to sleep, with all that mess going on.
Continued Good to be back with you, and thanks for reading!
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