What I thought I knew: My childhood vacations were family adventures. My parents would plan when and where to go long in advance with their friends, so that we all went together. We met up with various people throughout our summers, but the stable factor was camping with "Mark and David" and their parents. Even if we were traveling somewhere else, we would spend a day with them at their house or they at our house. We would go hiking, the parents would nap, the kids would play make-believe and then the parents would play pinochle until late at night. Come to think of it, this might explain the afternoon naps. Together with "Mark and David," we explored Placerita Canyon several times; a quick hiking trail just northeast of the San Fernando Valley. We went camping at Joshua Tree, the Oregon Coast, the Redwoods, the beach and once, when I was 14, from Salt Lake City we camped our way across America to Washington DC and New York.
My parents were able to take us on month-long vacations. We traveled to Yellowstone, where I remember only having pink-eye and my brother swallowing a bottle of aspirin. We went on several trips to Yosemite, back when you could drive everywhere in the Yosemite Valley. We camped all over California. We visited Aunt Sue and my cousins Dave and Eric. We visited relatives in Illinois, my mother's parents at their farm in Nebraska and my father's relatives in Kansas by car from California. My memories include driving through the dark, my sister, brother and I looking up at the sky from the back of a VW bug with all the camping gear on the roof rack. Later, we traveled in a VW bus with an ice cooled air conditioner, looking out through all of the windows at the landscape of America. We camped in a terrible cloth army tent, then in the early 1970's my parents purchased a large walk-in tent from Spring-Bar in Salt Lake City. I still have the tent, though the poles (heavy steel) need some welding before this season. I have replaced the tent pole and tent stake bags. My parent's collection of camping equipment included a wicker basket that miraculously held all the kitchen tools, an old white gas Coleman stove and lots of matches for the fire. They got better stoves over the years and graduated from the old canvas air mattresses to cots. Sleeping bags were cotton and we were often cold, sleeping in socks and jammies.
After my father's parents bought a house in Carlsbad, California, we would spend part of the summer at the old house that was attached to an Avocado grove. We spent every day at the beach, touring the local Carlsbad beach, La Jolla Cove, Kellogg beach in San Diego and occasional trips to Tijuana. My parents would attend Shakespeare plays at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego's park. Eventually, they brought us to see the plays; my first was "A Midsummer Night's Dream," a play that my father directed the church youth group in performing as a fund raiser several years in a row. I have played Hermia and Titania; ("What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?") After moving to Salt Lake City, I was introduced to backpacking in and around Escalante in southern Utah. My mother toughed it out with the youth group as a chaperone on these trips, complaining about "being 40," a concept no longer alien to me.
As I got older, I began to help my parents pack the bus. One year, my parent's exhausted, I volunteered to pack the bus. That previous year in high school driver's education, I had completed a report about taking a car trip. I knew what I was doing! When I got married, my husband and I continued the camping, including the VW bus. I learned to hate that vehicle, a 1967 camper van with the inherent problems of a small air cooled engine that is good for short trips in perfect weather. He still has that bus, as it is a "classic," and by "classic" I mean, park it. Our trips involved visiting Seattle from California and vice versa after moving to Seattle, especially after our first daughter was born. Because my husband worked for United Airlines in California, we also flew to Hawaii, a trip that never goes out of style. In Hawaii, your only issue after a day of snorkeling or shopping is, "what should we barbecue?" or "where is the blender?" At some point, we began visiting Idaho, where my sister lived. We camped outside of Featherville, just up from Anderson Ranch Dam on the South Fork of the Boise River. My parents would come, my sister and her husband would come and the kids grew older there every summer. It's become a tradition that surpassed both my sister's and my divorce.
What I know about vacations now: Several years ago, I was depressed because my parents were somehow able to take those long vacations and I could not seem to duplicate those trips. With some help from a counselor, I realized that what I had given my children was the stability to feel like they could always return to a place in the summer; going camping in Featherville. We stay at the same campgrounds, with the same tent but new cooking equipment and newer generations of sleeping bags, coolers and lawn chairs. My sister and her husband join us along with the cousins and lately it's been tough to get there before it's so dry that camp fires are forbidden. A couple of years ago, I bought cots. I'm feeling my parent's tiredness when I say I just can't get off the ground anymore. I have taken my daughters to California a few times and enjoyed the Redwoods and the beaches and Aunt Sue. I still visit relatives in Missouri, Texas and Nebraska, but I fly. I used to be able to drive for 12 hours, but this no longer appeals to me. Also, I don't have the Suburban anymore, and my husband got the VW bus in the divorce. I insisted. About 15 years ago, my best friend John introduced me to rafting the rivers in Idaho. I have been ferried down the Bruneau River and the Middle Fork of the Salmon on camping trips. John has taken myself and my daughters, my father and even old friends on day trips. He and a friend built a frame for my raft, a purchase my father made for the family the year before he passed away.
Lately, it's been difficult for me to plan a trip or schedule time off. My daughter's are grown and the family vacation expectation has hidden itself somewhere in the garage next to the Christmas ornaments. However my kids and my sister's kids are planning a camping trip to Featherville, as they all live in town this year. My job is to coordinate the welding of the tent poles, the car shuttle, find some more lawn chairs and plan a menu with my sister; this assuming we agree on a date. The first thing we will do when we get there is take the lawn chairs and sit in the river with a drink in hand. Cell phones don't work up there; that's a vacation! Everyone needs time off to relax, eat snacks and crappy cereal, play cards, swim at Baumgartner's and be distracted from work and routines. I need some more photos to find inspiration and new memories to review, so I'll take the camera. I love it when a plan comes together.
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