The Miles and The Memories
I love to travel. It probably comes from being on the evangelistic field as a kid. When my dad started pastoring, we didn't go on many vacations. Occasionally we would go to DeLeon, Texas, to my grandparents there, or to my New Orleans grandparents. Other than that, all trips were ministry related. The most memorable trip came when I was fourteen years old. The General Council of the Assemblies of God was in Baltimore, Maryland for the year 1979. My dad was encouraged to go, so he decided to take the whole family. Rather than fly, my dad made a deal with a lady in the church who had an RV in bad repair. He offered to restore her RV in exchange for borrowing it for the trip. We took two weeks off from the church to have a family road trip. We started from our home in Ferriday, Louisiana, headed down to Pensacola where my dad's sister lived. From there we camped in Orlando and went to Disney World and Universal Studios. My favorite teach, Ms. Ward, had talked highly of the fort at St. Augustine, so we made a stop there on the way up the eastern coast. We camped in Washington D.C. and took in all the sights, including the Smithsonian where we got to see the famous Hope Diamond on display.
After the council in Baltimore, we traveled over to Niagara Falls. My dad never met a stranger and could strike up a conversation with just about anyone. While in Niagara Falls, he met a local grounds keeper who told him everything he knew about Chokecherry trees. Many of these trees were in the area surrounding our camper. The man told my dad Chokecherries make great jelly. So, my parents thought it would be great fun to pick a vast supply of Chokecherries and make homemade jelly together. Everyone knows cherries are red, right? Not so with this variety. Chokecherries are ripe when they reach a dark brown color.We quickly set out to pick all the dark brown cherries we could find. When other tourists in the area saw us picking the fruit they joined the action. It was fun to watch them naturally choose the bright red ones. They popped these red cherries into their mouths and made the most awful faces we had ever seen. What they didn't know is the bright red cherries explain where they get their name "Choke" cherry. The sweetest and most usable of this variety of cherries are the ones who have matured just a little longer and are a dark maroon, almost brown in color.
From Niagara we crossed Canada and skirted Lake Erie, entering back into the United States at Detroit. As we pointed the nose of the RV toward home we got on the CB radio and started singing, "I wish I was in Dixie..." A trucker came back with the reply, "We wish you were, too!" Our two weeks on the road was a memorable time for me. This set a precedent for long road trips I would repeat with my own family someday.
As we raised our kids we took several wandering vacations. The first, we headed east to Nashville, then up into Kentucky, stopping off at the Mammoth Caves and Abraham Lincoln's birthplace before landing in Louisville where we toured Churchill Downs. We took Interstate 64 through Indiana and Illinois to St. Louis and spent three days in a hotel that had an indoor kids playground and pool, visited the arch and a science museum and other fun attractions. The trip wound back to El Dorado via Branson.
The next wandering road trip we headed west to Dallas, then down to San Antonio. In San Antonio we visited the Alamo, SeaWorld where we saw Shamu, and a wild animal, drive-through safari. While driving through the Ostrich area, one was walking down the road in front of us and expelled what seemed like a gallon of "milk" right in front of us. From San Antonia we went down to Brownsville, parked and walked across to Matamoros, Mexico and did some shopping. We then headed up the Gulf Coast to Corpus Christi and headed home.
Some time later we drove across Texas to New Mexico and lodged in Carlsbad. From there we visited Carlsbad Caverns, went to Roswell to explore alien lure, and took a drive up a ski resort mountain where there was still ice at the top in June. We went to a really great Mexican restaurant where they had two kinds of salsa on the table, one that looked like ketchup and the other was chunky and delicious looking. I took a deep scoop of the chunky and deposited it in my mouth, setting me on fire. I found out later, you are supposed to mix the blend of peppers into the tomato sauce base to regulate how hot you want it. I just went straight pepper and paid the price.
Other fun family vacation trips included a week in Florida in 2005 visiting Disneyland and Universal Studios, and a tour of the St. Augustine fort. The next year, 2006, we took an epic trip to New York, spending a few days in Niagara and then New York City. We flew out of Dallas, the first plane ride for the kids, and landed for a short layover in Philadelphia where we got an authentic Philly Cheesesteak. We were informed our next plane was having mechanical issues and they put us on a plane to Rochester, and drove us by van to Buffalo where we were supposed to get our luggage and a rent car. Well, they had our rent car, but not our luggage. With the promise to deliver our luggage as soon as possible, we headed to the American side of the falls, and then crossed into Canada where our hotel was. It was 24 hours before we would see our luggage. One of the days we drove to Toronto and ate at Wayne Gretzky's restaurant. After a few days in Canada, we took a small plane flight to NYC where we stayed at Milford Plaza hotel, a block from Times Square.
While in New York City, we set a goal to visit all five burrows. For the Bronx we chose to go to the Bronx Zoo. We road the subway, which turns into an el in the Bronx. We were in a car to ourselves except for this one young man who kept trying to sell me a candy bar. It was a little threatening. We made it to the stop and got off to see no zoo or sign telling us where to go. We walked down the street and found a auto body shop--possibly a chop shop--and asked which way to the zoo. The pointed out directions and we made it there. We toured the zoo and came to the entrance on the other end. Rather than walk all the way back through and go back to the subway, I decided we would exit the zoo there and get a cab back to Times Square. We stood on the street and waited for some time and did not see one single cab. Apparently the sea of yellow taxis hang out more in Manhattan. We started walking down the street toward the subway hoping to see a cab along the way and never did. We wound up taking the subway back, this time without candy bar guy. We also went to Coney Island and rode the Cyclone roller coaster and ate hot dogs at Nathan's. We visited ground zero, which at the time was still a hole of rubble being excavated. And how do you get to Carnegie Hall? The old saying is, "Practice, practice, practice." We got there by walking down to Seventh Avenue, between 56th and 57th Streets. We tried to see as many landmarks as possible, the Statue of Liberty, the studio where they had The David Letterman Show, the cafe where Seinfeld always met, the Moondance Diner which is featured in Friends, and where Mary Jane worked in the Spider Man movie, Macy's, FAO Schwarz (yes, the floor piano from BIG was there.) It was a memorable trip for sure.
When the kids moved out of the house we didn't take a trip for a while, but while watching the 2008 Olympic games they would talk about the next summer Olympics would be in London. I did the math and 2012 would be our 25th anniversary during the week of the Olympics. We decided to take a big silver anniversary trip to London during the Olympics and then to Paris. While we ended up not being able to attend any Olympic events, we did have a wonderful time in London, Edinburgh, Scotland, Paris, and Brussels, Belgium. This adventure is written out in a printed memory book. What an adventure it was.
In 2017 we embarked on another grand adventure to Rome, Venice and Athens, Greece. It was amazing to see structures and places that had nearly 3000 years of history. At the time of this writing we have now booked a trip to Egypt in 2026 for a two week tour of Cairo, the Nile, Alexandria, Luxor, Aswan and all the ancient wonders. I still enjoy family trips like the one we just took to the Smokey Mountains. Terri and I, along with Chanda, Brad, Nova, Myla and Wren rented a cabin for a week in Gatlinburg, Tennessee to relax and see God's beauty in nature.
I like adventure. I'm not much of a "lay out on the beach" guy, or a cruise fan, rather seeing things I've never seen, doing things I only dreamed I could do. Yes, usually I come home from vacation exhausted rather than rested, but it is the memories, the stories, the epic tales of travel, that I carry with me in my head. But it isn't just the places, it is the people I share the experience with that matters the most to me. I can see me and Terri having more adventures until we physically can't travel. What an exciting thought that is.