TxTravelPro

Mine was a trip to ABQ in the early 60's. We lived in Garland, Texas and were on our annual drive vacation.
I don't recall too much, but our hotel turned out to be a flop house with shared bathrooms. My Mom cried and we had to split the family into 2 rooms. I remember it looking like a scary attic. Gray with squeaky, nasty beds and people yelling all night.
During the same trip, my Mom and I were told to leave a store because they thought we were Indians.
Of course I am sure the reaction of my Mother at the time made all this stick in my memories.

girlonthego

Lake Winnepauske (? can't spell) New Hampshire. We stayed in cabins every year for years. No TV, No A/C. We went and other families would meet us there and every night we would go to different cabins to play charades and stuff. Funny, we all played, the adults and kids. We also put on shows for the parents. My mom was a director/helper in the organizing. I think I must have been around 5-6 years old the first year we went. It was around 1970. I can actually picture our cabin that we always rented. Very fond memories, very small town, everything you wish you could give your kids on vacation and it probably didn't cost very much.

DebitNM

Atlantic City when I was 5 years old. I went with my father to walk on the Boardwalk. He had me on his shoulders so I could see someone demonstrating a chop-a-matic. He put me down after a bit. I turned around and POOF! amidst a sea of legs, I couldn't find him!!

I figured I had better go back to the hotel, where my mom was visiting with an aunt of her SIL. I didn't know the name of the hotel {Ambassador} but knew it was the one just after the hotel named after my favorite craker -- The RITZ !! It had a huge sign outside, so once I passed it, I went in to our hotel. Took the elevator up to 7th floor [I even remember it was room 727] but no one answered my knock. I took the elevator back down to lobby and saw my mom. I sheepishly wandered over to her, and the tears started. I burst out with"I LOST DADDY!" She hugged me and when my father came back frantic -- she told him I was safe but boy, was HE in trouble!! We laughed about that for decades!
Debi

MelissaHI

I have a few. My very first travel memory, at 4 years old in 1969, was on the plane (visiting disneyland, and my california relatives). I didn't know about the pressure in the ears. I started to cry because it was uncomfortable and I didn't know what was happening. My mom said, "Oh, that's just a mouse in your ear." well, that made it worse! I started crying harder! How do you backpedal from that???

Just to share--2 other early childhood memories that shaped my memories of travels to come:
1. Walking down the streets of Las Vegas in 1971 with my dad. We saw a woman who had a fantastic, fantastic body from behind. Suddenly she turned....and she had an awful face! My dad and I turned to each other and laughed hysterically, not saying a word but knowing we were looking at the same woman. (No...not like that!!)
2. Riding a cable car in San Francisco, 1973, standing on the outside with my dad. I held on to the pole with just one hand. He laughed nervously, but kept going on about how he was going to tell my mom that he let me ride the cable car with one hand.

Two of my favorite destinations, to this day, are Las Vegas and San Francisco. I often look at every detail around me whenever I visit to see what is still the same since those days in 1971 and 1973.

PhotoDad

I guess my earliest road trip memory is driving to Maine for Thanksgiving with my Mom and sister. We had a beat up VW bug with rusted out floor boards ("Keep your feet up kids"). After driving into a blizzard, we had to spend the night in a hotel (in my mind it's a Holiday Inn, but I could be wrong). That was the first time I stayed in a hotel and I was THRILLED. My Mom, I think, felt otherwise. The ensuing Thanksgiving dinner became the standard by which all Thanksgiving dinners are measured, and none have quite measured up.

Another memory that's especially fond to me is my son’s earliest road trip memory: just he and I driving home from Maine one night(it's always more magical driving at night). We were listening to the Red Sox game on the radio and chatting. As the bases loaded up, out chatter turned to the game. Listening to Manny Ramirez go through the pitches was like listening to 'Mighty Casey at the Bat'. The big difference was that Manny hit a grand slam home run and Mighty Casey struck out. Tommy and I were thrilled. I guess he was a little over four years old. He still asks me if I remember it:
“Hey Dad? Remember when we were driving home from Maine and we were listening to the Red Sox and Manny hit a grand slam home run?”
"Yes, I do bub".

Dan
www.familyroadtrippers.blogspot.com

luvtravl

When I was 4 we spent a week up near Cadillac, MI on a little fishing lake. I remember swimming near the dock and getting to ride in a kiddie train at a little amusement area that was nearby. Vacations with my dad almost always involved a rowboat and a fishing pole. Not the ideal vacation for mom since she still had to cook and clean but we always had fun.

Dukey

Blowing Rock, North Carolina in 1946 and being lifted up so I could speak on one of those "old fashioned" wall-mounted telephones.

Saraho

A trip to Virginia when I was two. I was a late talker. My mother said my first words were "Bull Run Mountain" learned when I saw the beautiful mountains there.

beanweb24

5 years old (1978) on a trip from Omaha, NE to Honolulu, HI (to visit grandparents stationed there). I remember these things:

1) I was scared of the ocean, so I would run into the water when the waves were retreating and out of the water when they were coming back
2) My grandma wouldn't let me have any cake for dessert unless I had fruit first. Every night I chose pineapple, followed by chocolate cake, which made my tongue burn like crazy.
3) My brother collected a bunch of "shells" from the beach, then proudly displayed them on the kitchen counter...and several turned out to be shells.

I also remember the trip was over Christmas and someone gave me a stuffed pink mouse.

But I couldn't begin to tell you anything about the book I read last month.

beanweb24

Duh...

3) My brother collected a bunch of "shells" from the beach, then proudly displayed them on the kitchen counter...and several turned out to be snails.

nytraveler

My parents rented a cottage at Lake Winnepasaukee(?) the summer I was 3 - and my father made me a tiny toy birch-bark canoe from some peeled bark we found walking down to the Lake. I even have a picture of me, with the canoe, sitting in the open door of their ancient car.

My brother - born later that year - somehow got hold of it and squashed it shortly after he learned to walk. (And he still hears about it from me - 45 years later - whenever he does something that aggravates me.)

jetset1

I remember riding the state ferry Tustemena, between Homer and Kodiak when I was a kid. The boat had, at that time, a round bottom, which made it roll side to side in rough seas.

If anyone watched Deadliest Catch on the Discovery Channel, that's how it was around the Barren Islands during storms. I was a good sailor and never got sick. My mother was a different story. She would be holed up in our cabin like a missionary on her way to Hawaii from N.E.

I remember going outside in the rain and wind for fresh air once, and my dad watching me. He took a picture which shows a soaking wet curly haired girl looking like she was having some fun, Alaska style

cd

Taking a Grayhound Bus every summer to Ky to spend a week with my mom's family and getting to slop the hogs, feed the chickens and gather eggs.

trippinkpj

Being in the back of a VW micro bus on a road/ camping trip to Oregon. I was 4 yrs. old.

Wayne

It was when my mother, 8-1/2 months pregnant, had to take a bus trip over bumpy country roads to visit a sick relative. When I was born a few days later, I could still feel the jostling.

CarlaM

Dad taking us on the "Griswalds summer vacation" in our green '66 Dodge Dart station wagon, with black vinyl seats and no A/C for 4 weeks from LA to the mid-West. Mom kept a spray water bottle in the ice chest to cool us kids down. I still am convinced my bladder is permanently damaged for all the times he said "hold it just a little longer honey...we are almost there"!

I drove him to the San Diego Zoo last week and when he asked me to stop to use the bathroom...I just snickered and said, "Dad, just hold it a little longer...we are almost there!"

Looking back, our summer road trips were the best experience a kid could ever have and I thank dad for that all the time.

PaulRabe

In 1961, I remember my family going up the west shore of Michigan, then across the Mackinac Bridge to the Soo Locks. I would have been seven.

My aunt tells me my family visited her when I was five, but I honestly don't recall that.

About nine months before I came into this world, my parents visited the Grand Canyon, a place I've visited six times and would go again tomorrow. My mother is pretty sure I wasn't quite "baking in the oven," so to speak, which may explain why I don't recall that visit either.

CAPH52

I hope you won't take offense at this TX, as it isn't meant as a criticism. But I wonder if this would get more response in the Lounge?

I have a very, very vague memory of being in Baraboo, WI with my parents and grandparents when I was two. Much clearer memories of our first big road trip. It was to Estes Park, CO and I was 6 years old.

J_Correa

When I was about 4, my family went camping with the extended family. We did this other times, I am told, but this one I remember for 2 reasons.

1. My older cousin (who was 7 and could write) and I dug holes in the ground and made toilet seats out of paper plates for everyone - with their names on them, no less. There was a "potty" for everyone, right in a neat little row behind our camp. We couldn't figure out why no one would use them because it was a great idea - very convinient and everybody had their own, hello - LOL.

2. I had a toy muzzleloader riffle that I got at Frontier Village, which I forgot at the camp site. I can still see it leaning up against a tree, right where I left it My mom tried to console me by telling me that some other kid probably found it and really liked playing with it. That did NOT make losing my rifle any easier {eye roll}. LOL.

LLindaC

I'm thinking it was a 59 Chevy station wagon- all those road trips with my brother and I bouncing around the back, fighting. I went to tell my Dad that I was feeling bad and threw up down the back of his seat. From then on, they gave me Paragoric, so the next few years were a haze...that was some good stuff...