Family Vacations and Other Adventures

Grandma’s house

The kitchen window

Middle River, Maryland

Fishing on the Chesapeake Bay--What fun! No matter how small our catch was, Grandma would fry it up and serve it. And, it tasted so great! I also remember the Fishy-Wishy song. Sing along with me--"Come on Fishy, Come on Fishy, come on Fishy-Wishy..." I always believed it would work. And, sometimes it did! I even remember praying (really) that I would catch something. I'll bet I wasn't the first one to pray for a catch. Actually, I did get a good catch--but I caught him years later. Anne

Camping Trips

Camping and Beth wetting the bed, and Gard.

Camping and Gard having diarrhea, and Dad cleaning him up with bottled water because there was no access to running water. I think it was while we were fishing at the San Louis pass....

Camping and everyone in bed and Dad hears a mosquito and the light must come on and it must be hunted down at any cost before any sleep can be had.  

Now I know where I get that…if I’m in bed and I hear a mosquito, I have to get up and spray a gallon of Off on myself. (I’m too blind these days to hunt down the little @#$%ers.) 

Does anyone else remember catching newts at Warwick Woods campground? 

Fishing Adventures

I remember falling into a creek somewhere on vacation and being rescued by John when I was maybe 4? I was perched on a rock next to Mary who was fishing and just kind of toppled in head first. I know it sounds crazy but I swear I remember seeing Mary's hook with bait on it and little minnows swimming around nibbling on it while I was under the water. (Maybe a constructed memory of a little girl.) I also remember when we drove out of the park and the park ranger saw me huddled between mom and Dad in the front seat and he said something like, "Did you go swimming?" or some other clever quip, and even then as a little kid I thought, "What a jerk."  

Spending the night on the San Louis Pier in Galveston fishing with Dad. I don't remember a whole lot, but I remember loving it.

Also, seining once in Galveston. I know I didn't participate, but it sure was cool watching it done.  

Who could forget the canoeing trip where we found the lost wallet, and it was Dad's!!! 

New Jersey

Various summers while we lived in Pennsylvania

I remember searching for “diamonds” at Cape May.  

I just went to see what I could find out about “Cape May diamonds,” and found this page, which claims that the cause of the abundance of quartz crystals at Sunset Beach is “the strong tidal flow against the hulk of the sunken concrete ship Atlantus. I did not know that! One of the campgrounds that we stayed at several times in Cape May was within walking distance of Sunset Beach (Cape May Point). 

Didn’t Beth get her stuffed seal, Sealy Posturepedic, during one of our New Jersey vacations? 

South Carolina

Clemson, summer of 1974

Camping out with the Cooks near Clemson. The only thing I remember vividly was evenings around the campfire. —Ed

I remember going to see "clogging" and I was enthralled with the dancing and music. I still love the banjo. I keep threatening my family that one day I will start playing! —Anne

I don't remember this AT ALL. Can you all recall anything else that might jog my way-back when memories?  

Nova Scotia

Summer of 1975

I remember in Nova Scotia being carried across a field of crickets on Dad's shoulders. The way I remember it, it was like something out of a horror movie. All crickets. Not even any grass or anything. (Another constructed memory.) I also remember the fish that somebody caught, 3 of them. That's about it. I must have been really little.  

Who can forget the Tidal Bore?

On our way back from Nova Scotia, we stopped in a town at the point where the peninsula of Nova Scotia joins the mainland province of New Brunswick. We were stopping for lunch or a potty break, as I recall. We saw lots of people looking over a wall at the Bay of Fundy. There were signs that explained the phenomenon of the tidal bore—“a wall of water that moves up certain low-lying rivers due to an incoming tide…, form[ed] when an incoming tide rushes up a river, developing a steep forward slope due to resistance to the tide’s advance by the river, which is flowing in the opposite direction.”^[1] 

So we decided to stick around and join the crowd waiting to witness this wonder of the natural world. We stared at the low-tide mud looking for any sign of the spectacle to come. A little dog was nosing around down in the mud for a free seafood meal, and everyone began to worry about what might happen to him. We imagined him being swept away on the fierce wave that would sweep past at any moment.

But the dog must have known something that we didn’t, because the anticipated moment of the tidal bore came and went, and nothing dramatic ever happened. I don’t know how long we stuck around; I imagine that Mom and Dad were eager to get back on the road. We’ll never know whether a 12-foot wall of water surged up the waterway as we drove off. We just have to wonder what conditions of tide or winds conspired to make the tidal bore such a colossal bore on that particular day.

Source:

1. ↑ What is tidal bore?

Galveston

And didn’t the rest of us take down the camper and hook it back up to the car before he got back? 

Down on the Farm

Dad and I went to visit the John Gumnicks to help rebuild the porch on their farmhouse. There had been tons of rain and when we were approaching the place, the road ahead was underwater. Dad was contemplating driving through the water, even though we weren't quite sure how deep it was. (Hell, it was a rental car.) As we sat trying to make the decision, Dad said, "What's the worst that could happen?" I said, "We could end up down there." and pointed "down river" at a field totally covered over with water. We sat and wondered, how will we let John know we can't get there, when we saw a truck approach the water across the road from the other side (about 200 yards away). Some crazy guy got out of the truck and started to wade through the water in our direction. What is that guy doing, we thought. When he was about half way across, we realized it was John. He came the rest of the way, asked us to go pick up some pig feed, and so we did, then met him at the water again, where he loaded the feed onto his shoulder and lugged it back to his truck. Good times.  

Travels with Dad and The Little Girls

How about some memories of all the trips we took with Dad when he worked at GURC? Visiting colleges all around the Southeast.... I remember going to New Orleans, I remember Jane locking the keys in the trunk, I remember putting Dad's bathing suit into the elevator and sending it down to him all by itself (he didn't think it was nearly as hilarious as we did).... We spent a lot of time on a lot of college campuses, exploring their libraries and student centers. I thought it was totally cool.

I also remember THAT COMPANY VAN that we took on some trips that later we thought might be cursed. On one trip I think it totally died and had to have a new engine, on another it all of a sudden became COMPLETELY INFESTED with ants. They had gotten into EVERYTHING; they had even eaten the erasers off our pencils.... Weird.... And eventually, that van (after it was out of our possession) accidentally rolled over the wife of one of the people Dad worked with and killed her. I guess not all the memories are happy-go-lucky!