Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Weekend Assignment #141 - Traveling

Weekend Assignment #141: Do you enjoy traveling? What I'm asking is if you enjoy the journey as much as you enjoy the destination.

Oh how I used to love travel in the car.  We had a great big Packard seven passenger sedan.  The back seat was all mine.  It had, if you please, a bear rug on the floor, jump seats, and comfortable bench.  I had a playhouse all to myself, but I could open a jump seat and sit right behind grandmother, the driver.

Grandfather rode in the right seat, and made up games to pass the time.  He liked to count the cars we met on the road. 

Imagine grandmother wrestling that huge Packard Eight, with no power steering nor power brakes.  We were in a luxury place going to some other place, such as one trip to the San Diego zoo. 

In those days you could not travel from one city to the next wihout coming upon one bloody accident or another.  That was not a pleasant part of the trip, but it was an expected one.  There were no seat belts, no safety glass in the windshield, tires were lucky to last ten thousand miles. 

But travel was an adventure.

Extra credit: Any more travel planned for 2006, or are you home for good for the rest of the year?

I am pretty much at home from now on.  I have a van, but only use it when my daughter drives me somewhere in it. 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

And Gas was cheap back then too!

Anonymous said...

My earliest memory of traveling in our 1947 Chevy was from Joliet to Peoria Illinois.    My very first memory is just after we moved to Joliet from Peoria and being in our new home.     We were headed to Grandma and Grandpa's though I remember them living on the farm in Princeville IL before they moved into Peoria, so I don't know where we were headed.    The old car broke down and Dad started walking down the 2 lane highway then seeking a ride for help.    Leaving me with my Mom and sister in the car people would slow down and stop and ask if we needed help for which my mother would explain that Dad had gone for help.   I guess we were all a little scared having Dad gone is why it is still so vivid in memory.     The people who stopped were local farm people and genuinely friendly.     Dad finally got back with one of Mom's cousin's husband in a brand new T-bird convertable I believe and everything was back to normal having fixed the car.     mark

Anonymous said...

I have done alot of traveling, but would like to get to Ireland and Scotland. Bam