Mom's $200 Trip!

In 1968 Mom saved $200 dollars by feeding us Stew with carrots and potatoes and meat for half of the week and beans the other half. I'm not sure how many months.--In June we set out. Our first stop was this tower in Utah.

We played in the Great Salt Lake. The salt water stung every cut. Then we used the outdoor showers. We crossed the Salt Flats of Nevada, where they race cars--no air conditioning!! So HOT. We stopped for Ice Cream at the first town. Then we came to Klamath Falls, Oregon where Uncle Tom lived. His tiny little girls could swim! He showed us how he fished on the river there too. We stayed overnight there.

We traveled on to Eugene Oregon. We met Uncle Bob, Dad's brother. He worked at Wyatts as a mechanic. We invited him out to a Smorgasboard--the first kind of Buffet Restaurants then. (Mom whispered to us--we could have only one or two things, so Bob and Dad could have all they wanted) then they found out when we checked out, that it was ALL YOU CAN EAT!!

We went to Crater Lake in Washington, where a volcano had blown its top and then the rains had made it into a lake.

Aunt Rose lived in Seattle, Washington. She was blind. All of her canning had Braille labels and her "TV" was a set with dials that brought in the sound--made by a man and his son in her ward. We stayed the night there, all packed into her little living room. Her house was built on a rolling hill. She told us how to get to Puget Sound over a cloverleaf exchange on the freeway. It looked the whole time that we were going the wrong way, until we arrived. Then Puget Sound--ooh ee, did it stink! and there was not one shell, only barnacles.

From there, we traveled into Canada, just a little ways. We stopped beside the road for a minute, and there beside the road was a little shell!

We spent the night in Montana beside the road. June was never that cold! We hurried on through Wyoming and through Yellowstone National Park.

We saw an elk

and a moose

We walked through the amazing bubbling sulphur pots--the smell!

Then there was Old Faithful. When we stopped, it was just about to erupt--Mom took picture 1,

2 even higher, then 3--perfect pictures. (I don't have 3, but we used to show it to people that came to the house.)

Next was Fort Collins in Colorado, where Mom's good friend Lola Lue McClellan Williams lived with her husband Paul and children. I remember watching how one daughter curled her hair, and in the town, how it was mixed with houses and horses.

We went on down through Colorado where we drove over the Million dollar Highway--where they found there was gold in the pavement after they laid it. Then Mom drove on through Ouray, Silverton and Durango in the dark to our own little home.