Once In A Lifetime Trip

In 1984, as the summer was approaching, I was thinking about a trip I had wanted to take the family on for several years. I had wanted to visit Yellowstone National Park. I knew that trip would require a lot of time and driving, but I did not know if I would ever be able to get back to that area again before Tammy and Jennifer would be off at college or married. I had also wanted to go back to Seattle to visit Uncle George, my Dad’s youngest brother. Our family had visited Disney World the previous summer and we had one day’s tickets left that could be used at Disney Land.

I laid out a travel agenda that had our trip going up through Colorado to Yellowstone, then up to Canada. From there we would travel west through Canada and then down to Seattle for our visit with Uncle George for a few days then down to LA for several days before heading back home. We invited my mother to go with us on that trip, she loved traveling and seeing new places. Eva and our girls were good about adjusting to tight traveling conditions, so the five of us set out for a long car trip that would cover more than 6,800 miles.

The first couple of days were through areas that we had been in prior years, but we would stop and take pictures of the girls in New Mexico and Colorado to have their pictures at those places at their current ages. We made our way up to Wyoming by the second day where we would see some new sites. During the drive from Cheyenne up to the Grand Teton National Park, we saw some beautiful country and hundreds of Antelopes at multiple points along the way. We stayed one night in Jackson Hole, and we got to see the sights in that town. The next day we drove up through the Grand Teton National Park and then up to Yellowstone National Park.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and I have many pictures of the wonderful views of the mountains, streams, and so many great sights. Seeing “Old Faithful” in person and feeling the droplets hitting your face from the water shooting up in the sky is something I will never forget. The Mammoth Hot Springs, Grand Prismatic Spring, and the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone are so spectacular, they are hard to describe their beauty. We were able to spend one night close to Yellowstone Lake and see the sunset and it was great. At the Norris Geyser Basin Museum, there are many geysers in that area. The animals can be seen all over the park including bears, bison, deer, elk, wolves, and many other smaller animals.

As tempting as it is to get out of the car to take pictures or to watch the animals by the roads, it is much smarter to take pictures from within your car. There are many safe places with pull-outs where you can take pictures of beautiful scenery. The park is so large that you can see many different areas that have their own beauty and just get a sense of God’s creations. To stand and look at sights that have been captured by great artists in their paintings and/or photographs. While there, I almost wished I had not planned to go on the rest of our trip so that we could have stayed at Yellowstone longer.

We left Yellowstone taking the North Entrance and going up to Gardiner Montana. At Helena, we went to the state capitol building to take some pictures and see some of the sights there. While we were there, we called Uncle George to give them an update on where we were and an estimate of when we would be reaching Seattle. There are not a lot of highways in Montana, so the options to get to Canada take you through a lot of the state where you see some beautiful scenery and some roads that pretty much have to be rebuilt each summer from the harsh winters. Some of those areas included Indian Reservations that movies have been made about.

As we entered Canada, we made the required stop to take pictures to have a record of going there and to share in the generations to come. Lethbridge was the first city in Canada of any size where we took more pictures including the beautiful flowers they had at many places around town. The highway we traveled from Lethbridge took us through Fort MacLeod then through Crowsnest Pass and along some narrow places through the mountains. That road would have us going north, south, west, back north, and repeat all of the above. It was very slow covering a distance that a plane could cover in a short distance. We stopped at a historical site that is called “Frank Slide” where the small mining town of Frank was destroyed by a rockslide killing many people in 1903.

We returned to the USA by going south into Idaho following a very winding highway 95 through mountains to Bonners Ferry and then on to Sandpoint at the edge of a beautiful large lake. We continued south to where I 90 is today, where we took a detour to visit the Northern Pacific Depot Railroad Museum in Historic Wallace, Idaho. Places like these are seldom seen by travelers focused on going to well-known sites, but they can be fun for the family to see and learn about the out-of-way places.

From there, we travel west to Spokane Washington, to make our way to Seattle. The only other time I had been to Seattle was with my parents and JoAnn in 1960 and we came up from LA from the south. The view of Mt. Rainier from the east was a sight to see and you can see it from Spokane all the way to Seattle where the view is behind and south of your drive. The view of Seattle coming out of the mountains is a sight to see.

We stayed several days in Seattle and Uncle George took us to many great places including the World’s Fair Grounds, the Space Needle, Seattle Aquarium, Seattle Locks, Puget Sound, and a beach where our girls could wade in the cold waters. Everyone got a kick out of the Fish Market where they throw the fish and put on a show with their attitude to the public. Uncle George had worked for the railroad most of his adult life before retiring and he grew beautiful flowers that covered a big part of his front and back yards. Aunt Evelyn did not leave the house much, but she would cook a couple of meals for us while we were there. You better be hungry, because she expected you to eat a lot or her feelings would be hurt.

When we left Seattle to go to LA, I wanted to stop at Mount St. Helens to see what the area looked like after the 1980 eruption. My family had traveled there in 1960 to see the park as it was then. It was amazing how much had been destroyed for so many miles and how much had changed. However, we could see how new vegetation was growing and the area was taking on a new look. Time goes on with new replacing that which is gone.

We continued south to Oregon and stopped to take some pictures, then through Portland to Salem where we visited the state capitol and took more pictures. From there, we drove west to the Pacific Coast Highway to drive south along the coast. We took some pictures, and we found some places where we could get out on the beach and in the water. Our girls could say they had been in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. We stopped to take pictures when we entered California and then visited the Redwood Forrest so that they could see how large and tall the great redwoods are. We took some pictures to show how tiny we were standing next to them.

The drive along the coastline took a lot longer than I expected, so we had some long days of driving to get to LA by the expected date of plans. That was the year of the 1984 Olympics in LA and we had planned to get to that area the day before the end of the Olympics. Once we got back to the main highway heading south in California, we discovered that all of the hotels and motels were full and had no rooms available, or the rates were about three times the normal rates. We drove by the state capitol in Sacramento, but it was already late, and we still had not got a room for the night.

It was close to 2:00 a.m. when we found a small motel in the town of Los Banos, back in an area mostly orange orchard. Tammy would explain to me that Los Banos means “the bathrooms” in English (more than once over the years). At least, we had a room for the rest of the night and my family did not kill me. I had a room reserved for the next night in Riverside and rooms closer to LA after the Olympics were over. Our drive down to LA was not bad; however, the extra traffic due to the Olympics required finding another route to get around to Riverside without spending the day in heavy traffic.

While in the LA area, we spent a day at Universal Studios and saw the shows that were popular at that time like The “A” Team, Jaws, and Star Wars, and a tour of the many sets used for TV shows and movies. We had to go to the Hollywood Walk of Fame and stand on each of the star plaques and then drive around Beverly Hills, and the Sunset Strip. We went to Disneyland and enjoyed the rides and the shows and of course the excitement of the experience of being there. We also spent a day at Knott’s Berry Farm Park and enjoyed all of the rides and shows including the old west shoot-outs. We had experienced a lot of great scenery, activities, and good times together as a family; however, we were all tired and ready to head back home. We made one detour to go to the Roy Rogers Museum which was in Apple Valley (near Victorville) at that time. The museum was much larger there than when it was moved to Branson many years later. While there, I shared memories with our girls of my childhood and about going to see his movies.

It was around 2:00-3:00 in the afternoon of the first day heading home when I started hearing a noise from the engine area. I then noticed that the air coming from the A/C was not as cold as it had been. We were driving through the desert area, so I did not think too much about it. I think we spent that night in the Mesa, AZ area and got up early the next morning to get going before the heat of the day traveling through a very hot part of the country. About mid-morning, I started hearing the noise again and stopped to see what was causing the noise. It was the A/C clutch that sounded like the bearings were going out. We still had another day and a half to go before we would get back home. The car was still under warranty; however, there were few cities that would have a dealership where the repairs could be made, and it would be late Friday or Saturday before we could find one, and I needed to be back at work on Monday.

We stopped in Fort Stockton, TX for the night with the plan to leave early the next morning so we could travel as far as possible without the A/C on. As we were driving through San Antonio, the A/C went out completely and we made the rest of the trip home with the windows down enjoying the Texas heat and a reminder of what our trips were like before A/C. It had been a trip that covered a lot of miles, seeing beautiful scenery, and enjoying a lot of fun activities with the family. We were all very tired and ready for just some “home time”, but those memories are so precious these days.

Roy Rogers Jr. – King Of The Cowboys