One of my fondest childhood memories was the summer of '82, between 6th and 7th grade. My Mom had to go to some government workshop in Texas. Sheppard Air Force Base or something like that? Her workshop was 6 weeks. My grandparents decided to build a camping trip around that. We left home in Maryland, about two weeks before, and just sort of took our time getting out to Texas, stopping wherever we wanted. For the next 8 weeks, by and large, our home was a 1976 GMC 3/4 ton crew cab pickup with a slide-in 10-foot truck camper. First trip was to the tiny town of Holly Brook, VA, in Southern Virginia. My uncle was living down there at the time, playing a hillbilly, and we dropped the dog off for him to take care of.
I kept a daily journal of everywhere we went, but I haven't seen it in ages. Hopefully it's packed away somewhere, but unfortunately, it may have been tossed at some point. Anyway, from my memory, I do recall the 1982 World's Fair in Tennessee, Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, and some place in Arkansas where you could mine for diamonds. Or rather, slough for them. I also had a fascination with high points, as in the highest mountain in a given state, so I remember them taking me there, in Arkansas. I forget the name of the mountain, and I'm too lazy to google it right now. But, we pretty much just took our time, going to wherever the whim-of-the-moment took us, as long as it was more or less on the way to drop Mom off in Texas.
After that, we went on out to see Grandmom's brother and sister-in-law in Long Beach CA. But, again, we took our time and stopped off wherever we felt like. My main memories of that were Sandia Peak, which had an aerial tram, and for some reason I remember a Route 89-A. I just remember Grandmom mapping out a route somewhere, having Granddad take it, and then Granddad griping about how narrow the road was...and Grandmom having a fit about how treacherous it was, with the steep mountain drop offs and no guardrail. I know we hit the Grand Canyon at some point, either going out or coming back, but it was so crowded we didn't stay long. When we got to Long Beach, I think we stayed there about a week or ten days. The only thing I remembered about that was going to Knott's Berry Farm, and then a few years later when I saw "National Lampoon's Vacation", I had a flashback...Imogene Coca was a dead ringer for my Great Aunt Audrey!
After we left Long Beach, we went to Mount Whitney, and then Death Valley. I also remember Lake Meade, Las Vegas, Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon, Canyon de Chelly. the Four Corners, and the Great Sand Dunes. I think we saw something called "Checkerboard Mesa" as well, but not positive. I do remember spending a really long time at Zion Canyon. We really fell in love with that place. It was relaxing, and there was plenty to do. I remember doing a lot of innertubing down one spot on the Virgin River, near the campground.
Eventually, we got back to Texas, on a Friday afternoon, got Mom, and hit the road. By Saturday afternoon, we were swinging back to get the dog. Unfortunately, my uncle had chained the dog to a pine tree, and the tree got struck by lightning. One of his friends had been sitting out on the front porch, working on a chainsaw when it happened, and he got shocked, too. Luckily the dog survived, and lived to be around 14 (finally passed away in early 1995) but was scared witless of thunderstorms for the rest of his life.
Part of the magic of that trip was being able to just take off and go, at our own pace, and do what we wanted to do. It just seemed so carefree. I wonder if you could even duplicate something like that nowadays though. It seemed like we always found a campground whenever we wanted one, and I think all the National Parks tended to have them. But I suspect these days, a lot of those little mom and pop campgrounds have closed down, and you probably have to make reservations and plan your trip well in advance.
