Thursday, July 03, 2008
A Friend Visits
I had received a call a few days earlier asking if we would be home on Thursday so an old friend could drop by. We were and he did. It was Chuck Anderson, a friend from high school in Daleville and later on work in Anderson, IN. Chuck stopped a little after noon on his way back to IN after staying a few days at Dale Hollow Lake. We picked up where we had left off 11 years ago when Linda and I moved out of IN. It was fun catching up on what each of us had been doing. Chuck had retired from GM in January of 2007 and was enjoying his retirement. We took a short trip around the farm in the Mule and then back to the house for some more conversation. It was great to see Chuck, but soon he had to be on his way. We exchanged email addresses and said, 'So long' and Chuck left around 3:30 PM.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Our Vacation In 1978
Not much going on at the farm with it raining and being cold, so I
decided to post some old photos from our vacation in 1978. You might not
recognize us, but remember we were young once too!
We left
Indiana the day after Memorial Day and drove the van to Arkansas and
visited Hot Springs Arkansas.
We
stayed in the van the first night parked in a rest area along the
interstate somewhere near the Arkansas / Texas state line. The next day
we drove to Dallas/Fort Worth. As luck would have it, we reached the
city right at morning rush hour. To this day, I've never been in worse
traffic than on the interstate between those two cities. It was 30 mph,
bumper to bumper for an hour and a half at least. Traffic on the access
roads alongside the interstate was moving faster. We eventually made it
and drove and drove across the biggest state I've ever been in and
finally stopped for the night near Corpus Christi. The next day, we
decided to take a break from driving and go to the beach. It was nice
and really hot, just what we had came for, so it was a relaxing day at
the beach.
We
were ready to leave so I started driving down the beach but the beach
ended in a rock wall with sea water on the other side, so I turned
around. That was a mistake. The van sunk and I had to pay to get it
pulled out. It's been so long I can't remember exactly where we stayed,
but I do remember it was too hot to stay in the van again, so we found a
motel room and stayed the night. The next morning we began our drive to
Brownsville and over the bridge to Padre Island. We checked into a
modern place and were on about the 8th floor with a nice view of both
sides of the island.
We
dinned out on shrimp and the best fish for three nights. The beaches
were white sand and the water was really cleaner. I could have lived
there for a long time if we would have had tons of money. All too soon,
it was time to move on. We crossed the border at Brownsville by walking
and took one of the strangest bus rides of my life through Mexico to
what they called the 'mall'.
It
was a group of 'buildings' made of chicken wire and tin roofing with
several shops inside. Linda bought some jewelry made of onyx and nickel
and I bought a chess set made of onyx. I paid $20 for it, but at the
time, they were selling for $60 in the USA. I'll never forget the meat
lying out on carts for sale with flies all over it. We never ate or
drank anything the time we were in Mexico. We paid our nickel to cross
back into the USA and returned to the van and headed towards San
Antonio. We stayed in a hotel and took off early the next morning and
drove into the town and went to the Alamo.
I
was impressed with how small of an area it was and how big of an image
it had been in my mind. There was no comparison to the importance it had
played in our battle with Mexico over Texas. We briefly crossed into
Mexico again, but didn't think much of it, so back across the border. We
left the border area and headed towards Houston. We went through there,
stayed the night, and then crossed along the gulf coast to Galveston. We
had planned another day at the beach, but things didn't work out real
well.
We
had been at the beach about a half hour when I was standing in the water
and was stung by a jellyfish. It stung me on both arms, through my swim
trunks and I went running from the water. I was told 'it won't kill
you!', how comforting. That ended our day at the beach and we drove
towards Alabama. We stopped and toured the USS Alabama and a WWII
submarine.
It
was very dark in Alabama and we had trouble finding a place to stay,
seems there was a lot of poverty too. We finally found a place and then
next day we went to the Alabama Space Museum.
After
that we headed on towards Nashville and stayed a night. The next day we
went to Opryland Park and to the Grand Ole Opry.
That
is the nicest theme park I've ever been to because there were plenty of
shade, lots of rides, and music shows to entertain people while resting.
I was so disappointed many years later when they tore it down. We stayed
two nights in the Nashville area and then drove back to Indiana.
It
had been almost two weeks since we had left and we had one heck of a
time.
