SUNDAY DRIVES:
Any or all of the Sunday Drives could start out on any given day depending upon Holidays, summer vacation or scheduled non work days.
These excursions would usually be prompted by Dad. He would ask Mom if she wanted to go for a drive. We all listened very attentively. If she said, "I don't care." That meant ROAD TRIP.
I like to roughly group them into the following categories.
1. Short
2. Short with food
3. Longer with possible overnighter.
The short version was just everyone get in the car. The drive was usually a leisurely tour of the valley up along the slope. Mom and Dad would remember each little farm where they lived over the years and also who lived in what farm house. The kids in the back were bored beyond belief.
The short version with food began with a stop at the A&W for a gallon jug of root beer then a stop at Albertsons bakery for some maple bars, a couple cans of Vienna sausage or occasionally a whole roast chicken. Then we were off. We didn't particularly care where we just knew we got fed.
Some of the visits involved stopping at family friends for a visit. This would involve Dad going to the front door to see if anyone was home and waving us to get out of the car if someone was home. If there were kids to play with it was a bonus. Otherwise it was an exercise in behaving or else and an instant child appraisal of "Oh, you must be so proud". sigh...
Occasionally, if we turned north at Weiser we knew we were going to Indian Valley to visit with Homer Bott. A childhood friend of Dad's. His farm was a wonderful place to visit. He had a horse named Oscar that was trained to jump up into the back of his pickup so he could go irrigating. I rode him once and fell and broke my glasses. That, sadly, was the end of my equestrienne career. If it was the right time of year we might get to pick strawberries.
One spring, Dad showed us a weird octagonal shaped piggy bank that he said he was going to fill with dimes. This was what it would take to get us to Disneyland. We drove from Idaho to Petaluma, CA and overnighted with Uncle Carl and Aunt Rosalee. Then drove to Orange county to visit with another old Army buddy of Dad's.
I am not precisely sure if anyone called ahead to give a warning but there we were a station wagon of five kids, Mom was pregnant with somebody. Mom, Dad, me, and my two brothers went to Disneyland. One of the rides was broken so we stood in line until it was fixed. The only thing I remember about the place we stayed at was that Dad told us that the lawn was planted with a special kind of grass that only grew three inches tall and never had to be mowed.
We knew that if Dad drove to Ontario and kept going through Vale that we were headed to see Uncle Tater and Aunt Fern at either the Cow Camp or their house in Prairie City. We adored the Cow Camp where we got to run around with nearly a matching set of cousins like wild native Americans and sleep upstairs on beds that had thunder mugs underneath.
These travels always involved singing. Sometimes due to the fact that there weren't that many radio stations or just keeping kids occupied. We sang a lot of then popular tunes straight from "The Hit Parade", a weekly show. We sang "This Old Man" which came from "The Inn of Sixth Happiness". Didn't know about that until I watched it years later on TV. We sang "Sixteen Tons". We also sang odd ball songs that Dad knew. One was "Barney Google With the Goo Goo Googly Eyes" and we also sang "Mairzy Doats" Mairzy doats, dozy doats and liddleamsy divy, a kiddley Ivy, too, wooden shoe. Translation: Mares eat oats, does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy. A kid will eat ivy two, wouldn't you. This was of WWII vintage. At some point Mom would quietly turn on the radio hoping for a little less noise. I highly doubt any of us ever fell asleep on these trips, we were too lively and would also be involved in bouts of corporal punishment in the back seat. Ah, life on the road.
Any or all of the Sunday Drives could start out on any given day depending upon Holidays, summer vacation or scheduled non work days.
These excursions would usually be prompted by Dad. He would ask Mom if she wanted to go for a drive. We all listened very attentively. If she said, "I don't care." That meant ROAD TRIP.
I like to roughly group them into the following categories.
1. Short
2. Short with food
3. Longer with possible overnighter.
The short version was just everyone get in the car. The drive was usually a leisurely tour of the valley up along the slope. Mom and Dad would remember each little farm where they lived over the years and also who lived in what farm house. The kids in the back were bored beyond belief.
The short version with food began with a stop at the A&W for a gallon jug of root beer then a stop at Albertsons bakery for some maple bars, a couple cans of Vienna sausage or occasionally a whole roast chicken. Then we were off. We didn't particularly care where we just knew we got fed.
Some of the visits involved stopping at family friends for a visit. This would involve Dad going to the front door to see if anyone was home and waving us to get out of the car if someone was home. If there were kids to play with it was a bonus. Otherwise it was an exercise in behaving or else and an instant child appraisal of "Oh, you must be so proud". sigh...
Occasionally, if we turned north at Weiser we knew we were going to Indian Valley to visit with Homer Bott. A childhood friend of Dad's. His farm was a wonderful place to visit. He had a horse named Oscar that was trained to jump up into the back of his pickup so he could go irrigating. I rode him once and fell and broke my glasses. That, sadly, was the end of my equestrienne career. If it was the right time of year we might get to pick strawberries.
One spring, Dad showed us a weird octagonal shaped piggy bank that he said he was going to fill with dimes. This was what it would take to get us to Disneyland. We drove from Idaho to Petaluma, CA and overnighted with Uncle Carl and Aunt Rosalee. Then drove to Orange county to visit with another old Army buddy of Dad's.
I am not precisely sure if anyone called ahead to give a warning but there we were a station wagon of five kids, Mom was pregnant with somebody. Mom, Dad, me, and my two brothers went to Disneyland. One of the rides was broken so we stood in line until it was fixed. The only thing I remember about the place we stayed at was that Dad told us that the lawn was planted with a special kind of grass that only grew three inches tall and never had to be mowed.
We knew that if Dad drove to Ontario and kept going through Vale that we were headed to see Uncle Tater and Aunt Fern at either the Cow Camp or their house in Prairie City. We adored the Cow Camp where we got to run around with nearly a matching set of cousins like wild native Americans and sleep upstairs on beds that had thunder mugs underneath.
These travels always involved singing. Sometimes due to the fact that there weren't that many radio stations or just keeping kids occupied. We sang a lot of then popular tunes straight from "The Hit Parade", a weekly show. We sang "This Old Man" which came from "The Inn of Sixth Happiness". Didn't know about that until I watched it years later on TV. We sang "Sixteen Tons". We also sang odd ball songs that Dad knew. One was "Barney Google With the Goo Goo Googly Eyes" and we also sang "Mairzy Doats" Mairzy doats, dozy doats and liddleamsy divy, a kiddley Ivy, too, wooden shoe. Translation: Mares eat oats, does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy. A kid will eat ivy two, wouldn't you. This was of WWII vintage. At some point Mom would quietly turn on the radio hoping for a little less noise. I highly doubt any of us ever fell asleep on these trips, we were too lively and would also be involved in bouts of corporal punishment in the back seat. Ah, life on the road.
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