Family Vacations
From 8-3-14
Recently, a friend wrote us & wanted to know what our daily schedule was like in retirement. We tried to describe our fun-filled days & realized many of you have inquired about our passion for travel. The 1st two times we "retired" was strictly to travel, and several years ago Jan wrote about my "wandering spirit". Today, Jan will post the 1st of 2 stories written a while back.
Many, many years ago (before it became Hartsfield-Jackson Airport), we would spend frequent Sunday afternoons at the airport, watching for the occasional planes. We would climb up to the observation deck on top of what was then the terminal, and watch for the plane to come into view & land. We would try to point out the plane to Brenda, and tell her to "look,--see the plane!" (Back then there were probably 4 or 5 flights on a Sunday afternoon.) Ultimately, this must have been a small indication of what was to come later-- our travels! Probably, partially because of our love of travel, this became a Sunday afternoon ritual, which ultimately led to the short-time occupation of two of our children, when Brenda became a flight attendant with Delta Airlines, and before going into coaching, Bill was with American Airlines. This gave us our "wings to the world" and led to Ronald's 1st 2 "retirements" from coaching!
One of our first "family vacations" (which was probably the inspiration for Chevy Chase's shows), was a driving trip from Atlanta to the west coast---(many laughs, and I'm sure, a spanking or two along the way, but a good time). We stayed in Tulsa, OK, (my hometown), for a few days' visit with some family, before we set off on our real venture! We saw the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, were stopped for a while by a flood on the desert--(& we thought it never rained in the desert)--the petrified forest, topped a hill about 3:00 AM, and saw the lights of Las Vegas--all in one day! (We had left the previous morning from NE New Mexico.). That was QUITE a day!! We did make it to the west coast, saw Disneyland, & had a great experience, with many stories (which I won't go into here) coming from that trip. We made several one day trips which are rather unbelievable--flew to San Juan, P.R., to eat black bean soup (& we had left home thinking we were going to Canada, so I dressed warmly for the trip. We ended up not being able to get on the plane, so we flew to Puerto Rico instead--needless to say, I was warm! All we did there was eat black bean soup--but we ate 4 times in 1st Class on our way to & from there! We flew to the west coast with some dear friends, Edgar & Lavinia Wood. When we got to San Francisco, there was no fog (which was unusual for that time of the year), so we decided to take them on a quick tour & to the top of a mountain overlooking the city. It was a crystal-clear night, which,we knew, was not the norm, so we looked around at the beautiful views for a while. While under the Golden Gate Bridge, (we were in Pacific Standard Time, but our bodies were still on Eastern time), Edgar said, "I knew you said that you were going to show us California, but I didn't know you meant all in one night!" We were able to go to Hawaii several times, which was wonderful! Edgar & Lavinia went with us once, & since Edgar was a WWII veteran, he enjoyed seeing Pearl Harbor & the all the sights around Hawaii. (We also had some other great trips with the Woods in their new RV. Edgar would drive around the Covington square, playing "Glory, glory to old Georgia!" Over the loudspeaker before setting off to FB big football games!). We went to England several times, and through some mutual friends, met a wonderful couple who lived there. We stayed with them in their "bungalow" (which has a slightly different connotation in England than it does here), and later they came to see us on a couple of different occasions. ---to be continued in our next story.
