Trip out west 1972

Not long after we moved to Indiana my grandfather asked my mother to take him on a trip out west.  He would pay the way if she would do the planning and the driving.  She took him up on the offer and he, my step grandmother, her granddaughter, my mother and I set off from Indiana heading west.

Like all of my childhood memories, I have them, but they don't necessary match up with others who shared the experience.  Some of the time I'm not sure if they are my memories or just pictures my Dad took.  I have a few memories of the trip out west, and coming across these slides made me relive some of those times.  (Just the fact that we have photos is cool as my Dad was the photographer in our family, and he was not on this trip)

One of the things we did was visit each National Park as we traveled.  I had a booklet that I had stamped at each park.  Don't know what happened to the booklet, but for years I had a handful of the pamphlets I collected.  We visited Yellowstone, Bryce Canyon, the Grand Canyon, Glacier, Zion, the Redwood Forest, the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest. My mother's big thing was education.  She wanted my cousin and I to learn from this trip.  We just wanted to play Barbies in the back of the station wagon and have fun.  We were 7 and 8 years old, I believe.

 I remember talk about riding the mules down into the canyon and being very afraid of having to do that.  No one cared that I didn't want to leave my life in the hoofs of a mule.  I was afraid of heights (still am) and had no intention of riding mule back.  Once we got there the age to ride was 12 and so we had to walk instead.

I also remember that my grandfather slipped while we were descending and almost toppled over the edge.  My grandmother fussed over him and we girls cried.  My mother says both of those memories are hogwash.

This was my favorite slide.  We are sitting in front of the largest redwood tree ever and neither one of us cares, obviously from our expressions.  I remember this being a cool place weather-wise with lots of large trees.

Yellowstone smelled.  The springs were beautiful and interesting, but the sulfur smell made us gag, and I worried all the time about stepping off of the path and getting sprayed.  There were signs telling us how dangerous this was, and so I worried if someone stepped forward to take a photo.

Old faithful was the big draw.  I don't know if she erupted while I was there or not.  I'm sure Connie made us wait until she did.  Not sure if this is a picture of her or not.

Seem to have more of a memory of the parking lot at Mt. Rushmore and talking to some stranger, but I'm not sure if that is a memory of something else.

Before we entered Yellowstone park the back window of our station wagon wouldn't close.  We never figured out what the problem was, but we worried because it was well known that bears came up to the cars.  Jessica and I had some cards stuck into some grooves above the window, and when I removed them the window went up.  I always kept that to myself, not wanting to get in trouble for putting the cards there, but I don't think it had anything at all to do with the window problem.

Lucky for us the window went up because we had a bear visit us car side.  That I remember quite well.  I think we had two bears actually and one came to the back window.

It was a good trip.  I think we were gone two or more weeks.  I have only 50 slides of the trip, and I wish I had more.  Brings back memories....