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| Destin, Florida 2010 |
When I was growing up, I don't remember anyone going on vacation. My family didn't. Once we went to Ohio to visit my aunts and uncles, but I don't think that counts as a vacation, that was more like a family visit. Anyhow, the first time I stayed in a hotel/motel was when I was in the 8th. grade at Brodhead Elementary School. Every year the 8th.graders got to go on a overnight field trip to Mammoth Cave, Ky. Despite having an earache, I still had fun. My next trip was right after I graduated from high school. I was 17, had just met the love of my life and thought I knew it all. I was good friends with one of teachers from school and her friend. We planned a trip to Daytona Beach, FL. It was going to be my first trip to the ocean. I still remember riding in the back seat of the biggest car ever, coming up over a small rise and there it was...the Atlantic Ocean. I was in love. We spent a week there. I was introduced to a whole other lifestyle. I ate my first Mexican meal, went to my first night club, walked out on the pier, and a lot of other stuff that I have long since forgotten. That was June 1975 before Mike and I married in August that year. The next year, 1976, Mike, my mom, and myself drove to Sarasota, FL then across the state to Jacksonville. ,The Gulf of Mexico was and still is so much prettier than the Atlantic, that's my opinion. The sand is whiter, the water is bluer and the towns are smaller. We drove my mom's 1973 Matador. It had four doors, no air conditioning and a very touchy break pedal. Mike drove the whole trip and never did get used to the brake. Mom and Me had whiplash when we got home. The heat about killed us. Even driving down the road with four windows down didn't help keep us cool. To this day I think that's the most Mike has ever driven.
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| Me in Washington, DC 1998 |
Mike's brother, Lee, has always loved to restore old cars. In 1980 he invited several of us to travel to Memphis, TN for a car show. He had a pick-up truck with a camper top. It was another hot vacation. Up front rode Lee, Mike, and brother Cork. In the back was 10 of us. Can you imagine riding 6 hours cramped in the back of a camper with nine people? When I think about it, we were like the illegal aliens that come into America in the back of trucks. I'm sure the conditions are the same. Also in the back of the truck, we had all our luggage. Once you got stuffed in, you had to stay there until we made a stop, which was only once. Childress men don't like to stop for anything. I was 23 years old, but I think that trip was when I developed arthritis. We finally made it to Memphis. We had reserved one motel room for all of us. Sleeping that night was interesting. We took both mattresses off the beds, put them in the floor so we had four beds. Some slept on the mattress, some slept on the box springs, and the younger ones slept in the truck. I remember that I slept with my head against the door. No one could go in or out unless I moved. Every time I would get situated, someone had to go outside. I finally slept a couple hours. The trip was great despite the riding and sleeping arrangements. We saw Graceland, and took a bus tour of the city. Did you know that Memphis, TN has the most churches in the US? Well, it did in 1980. We all about died from heat exhaustion. I remember seeing a thermometer that read 106 degrees. A good time was had by all.
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| Lee and Gloria Memphis, TN |
Riding in the back of a pick-up truck must have been my only mode of travel in the early 80's because I remember another vacation where I rode in the back of a truck. In 1983, my cousin, Anna Lee was married to a man whose children lived with their mother in South Carolina, not far from Myrtle Beach. Neither Mike nor I had been there so when they asked us to go along with them to gather his children and bring them back to Brodhead for the summer, we said yes. Kyle was almost 5 and Neil was about 19 months old. The trip down there was ok since it was just Anna Lee, Kyle, Neil and myself, but coming home was going to be more crowded since we would have two more children. Again, we rented just one room. It was on the beach, but just my luck it rained the whole time we were there. The day we were to come home, the sun finally came out. Also, we had to go to the jail house in the town of Myrtle Beach to bail Anna Lee's hubby out of jail. They don't allow peeing in the parking lot down there. Anyhow, our ride home included a smelly dirt bike. It's a wonder we didn't die from gasoline fumes. This was not one of my favorite vacations.
In 1985, we borrowed Mom's big Matador car again. This time Mike and I planned on taking the boys to Disneyland. Mike was afraid that the boys, mostly Kyle, would open the back door while we were driving so he wired them shut. It was another warm weather trip with no air and two wiggly boys. We had a good time despite getting lost from each other at Disneyland and Mike getting pulled over by the police because the kids didn't have their seat belts on. So, we were good parents taking our kids to Disneyland although Neil says he doesn't remember one minute of it.
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| Vermont |
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| Me, Kaye and Rita at the Vietnam Wall |
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| Gay Head lighthouse Martha's Vineyard, MA |
Jump ahead to 1998, this is when my cousin, Kaye and our friend Rita and me took the trip of a lifetime up the East Coast. Rita and Kaye had it all planned out. We rented a car in Lexington, stashed our cooler filled with hot dogs, cheese and diet cokes in the back seat and away we went. This time the car had air and I had the whole back seat to myself. Our first stop was Washington, DC. We rode the subway to the mall where we saw the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Monument, the Vietnam Wall and other monuments. From there we walked to Ford's Theater where Abe Lincoln was assassinated and the house where he died. We ate at the Hard Rock Cafe which was right beside the Ford Theater. My favorite part of DC was Arlington Cemetery. We visited the graves of president Kennedy and his brother Bobby. We watched the Changing of the Guard at the tomb of the Unknowns which brought tears to my eyes. We went through Arlington House which had belonged to General Robert E. Lee. After a couple days there we moved on up the coast. We spent the night in Mystic, CT. Kaye loves lighthouses so we tried to see as many of them as we could. We were in a Lighthouse Museum somewhere in Connecticut, just browsing when the curator told us to leave because we hadn't paid. We didn't even know you had to pay. Oh well country girls go to the city what can you expect. New England was beautiful. We saw covered bridges in Vermont, lost ten dollars a piece in Atlantic City, New Jersey, decided there was nothing to see in New Hampshire so we by-passed it. We also stayed clear of Boston, Mass. and New York City. We spent two days on Cape Cod, took a ferry to Martha's Vineyard where we took a tour in a purple bus driven by an old hippie. We went as far as we could on the Vineyard. The dude in the purple bus let us get off at the Gay Head Lighthouse to take pictures. It was beautiful there. We then visited Newport, RI. We saw all the mansions and the church where JFK and Jackie got married. At one of the mansions we were too cheap to take the tour, but wanted to take pictures. Kaye stopped the car while I crept through the landscaping to take a picture for her. She got us in trouble two more times with that camera. Once in a casino in Atlantic City where she took a picture of a bunch of men playing blackjack and again in the church where the Kennedys married. Someone loudly told us we were not to take pictures. Our next stop was Niagara Falls. We arrived there late at night and stayed at the worst motel ever. It was so small that the three of us barely fit in. We wanted to see the falls at night because it has different colored lights shinning on it. We were told by the people at the motel that we could just walk across the street to the falls, so we put our stuff away and headed out in search of the falls. Well, of course that wasn't as easy as they said. We went in the opposite direction. We were walking in the darkest part of town, no street lights and no traffic. We got scared and headed back the way we came. We finally found the falls at 11:58, 2 seconds before they turned the lights off. What luck. The next day we saw the falls on the US side and then drove over into Canada. I wanted to ride the boat that goes up to the falls, but Rita and Kaye wouldn't go with me. Big chickens. Canada is so clean and so green. Buffalo, New York is not much to look at. From there we drove over to Cleveland, Ohio to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and then home. We had visited 14 states and 2 countries in 8 days. That was before Map quest or GPS systems so needless to say we got lost everywhere. I've taken a lot of vacations with Kaye and Rita. Sometimes we even let mom go with us. We've been to Cocoa Beach, FL a couple times to watch our boys play baseball. Shelley Parkerson and Rita's sister, Sherry Cash Spragens were along for those trips. Shelley and I kept the bunch entertained with our versions of almost every song ever written.
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| Momma and Kaye at Cocoa Beach, FL |
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| Niagara Falls 1998 |
In 2003 we started the Childress Family Vacation Series. A bunch of us would spend the week in Destin, FL. The women in one condo while all the men stayed in the condo next door. We made this arrangements because every year it seemed one of our boys was bringing along a girlfriend. It just looked better if the young lady could tell their parents that they were in separate condos from the guys. It was on one of these trips to Destin that Mike and I came sooo close to a divorce. He doesn't really like to travel, but he just goes to keep me happy. One year my brother-in-law had to leave a day early because he had to be at his job. Mike decided that he should go with him, but he didn't bother to tell me. He sneaked into our condo early Saturday morning, left me some money on the night stand and left. He left me to do all the hard work, load the car and drive 10 hours home. If my sister-in-law, Tracey hadn't been riding with me I would have been like the little piggie and cried all the way home. We've managed to keep the tradition of a family vacation going, but the family has grown so much it's hard for every one's schedules to work out. It gets harder every year for over 15 people to agree on where to eat.
My last trip was this past April when I went to Las Vegas, NV with my cousins, Anita, Cathie and Connie. Everyone needs to see both the ocean and Las Vegas in their lifetime.
I'm making plans for next summer's vacation already. I have a cruise on my "bucket list" too as well as a trip to San Francisco and someday Hollywood. Hawaii would be nice too.
