Reminiscing - Part 1

I was talking with my boss Friday morning and somehow I brought up about the cars today that have VCR's and DVD players in them to keep the kids occupied. And that I was stopped behind a car that had a monitor on the back of each seat. And yes there was a car seat on each side, to make the viewing pleasure even better. I was saying what a shame this was. What happened to the days when the family talked, listened to the radio or just took in the scenery. I started reminiscing about family vacations and outings and my own vacations and outings and decided that I would do a "reminiscing" series on as many as I could remember.

Just about every year in March or April, we, my dad, mom, brother Danny and I went to Florida. Or should I say, a drive to Florida. We could have flown, but where was the fun in that. We also drove because Danny was afraid of flying. We would always take the ferry. To tell the truth, this was probably my favorite part of the vacation. I love being on the water. We didn't have VCR's in the car so my mom thought it would be good to get Danny and me a whole week's worth of homework. I don't think she understood the concept of vacation, just kidding. We tried to get it done before we got to Florida. I remember the first time we took the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. I was scared out of my mind. I was afraid that we would get into an accident in the tunnel or a boat or ship would hit the tunnel and we would all drown. My family thought this amusing, but I think Danny felt the same, but being the big brother, he couldn't show his fear. Finally I saw light at the end of the tunnel. I was very happy to see the light of day until I saw where we were and realized we weren't completely done with the tunnel. After awhile I think my mom and dad thought I was calm enough to handle the second half. What was I going to do, swim or grin and bear it. I chose the latter.

Finally in Florida we stayed at "Days Inn", this was down the road from Disney. We went to "Magic Kingdom". The only ride I can remember is "It's a Small World". That was my mom's favorite and we went on it several times. I remember we went to have lunch and the place had the talking and singing bears on the wall, (I can't remember what they were called, but Bernstein Bears rings a bell.) We went to Sea World. How awesome, especially for me because of my love of animals. We went to Alligator Land. When you walked into the lobby there was a bird. There was a whole list of words that this bird was supposed to say. Notice I said supposed to. The only words we heard him say was "SHUT UP". This was around my birthday and my dad teased that he was going to get me a rattlesnake for my birthday present. (Yes. I was daddy's little girl. He was just as afraid of snakes as me.) We went to Cape Canaveral. That was a great place. I remember a pen that had a rocket in it and when turned over the rocket would move. I don't remember if we took the Bay Bridge Tunnel home. I must have blocked that out. I do remember that we ended up on Sky Line Drive. That was beautiful, but after awhile boring to a little kid. I can't remember the name, but we stopped at a place that had caverns, I think it began with an "L" and possibly in Virginia. My dad and I walked through this. Another awesome experience.

Back then we didn't have TV's, VCR's or DVD's in cars. Nor did we have all these hand held games. We talked as a family. We played games. We listened to the radio and played "Name That Tune". We took in the world around, without saying "are we there yet?" or "I'm bored." This is what memories are made from.