Arnie and Leona Skrivseth
Ladina, Dawn, Trenda and Maria.
In order by height instead of age this time.
Ellis looked up the car and thinks it is a 1965 Chrysler wagon. I'm still looking for a picture with the trailer.
I asked Mom and my sisters for their memories of this trip. How did we spend our time?
For one thing we had more room than usual since we had a station wagon. Maria didn't have to stay up front sandwiched in between Dad and Mom. She could come back with us and join the party. Maria remembers kneeling on the floor mat and facing the seat, then playing with her paper dolls.
Ah, paper dolls! Do any of you remember what fun that was? (Excuse us for a little minute if you are a gentleman reading this blog.) We cut ours out of the Sears, Montgomery Wards or Penney's catalogs. Whole families. We named the children our favorite names. At home we each made a little house for our family using wash clothes for the rooms. Then we went galloping around the house to visit each other, going on picnics, climbing on the bus to go to school, Vacation Bible School, bike rides - whatever hit our imaginations. We were a bit more cramped in the car. Now we could play "going to the mountains." Maybe we even put ourselves back in time and pretended we were going by covered wagon.
Trenda remembers she was closest to the ice chest so her job was to hand out snacks when people got hungry.
We all remembered the cars stopped by the side of the road. That was a sign to grab the camera and get ready to take pictures of big horn sheep, or moose or bear. Who knew what it might be this time.
One day we had lemon drops for a treat. A person soon finds out it's not good to suck on too many lemon drops in a row. After awhile your mouth gets sore. Trenda didn't want to harm a big horn sheep, but before you can say Jack Robinson she fed a big horn sheep a lemon drop.
We had stopped to look at a line of sheep walking down the side of the road. We rolled the windows down to get a better view. Everyone looked out the left side of the car. Trenda felt "someone" looking at her on her side of the car and turned to look. She found herself nose to nose with a big horn sheep. "Agh!" She had a lemon drop in her hand and held that out. The sheep nibbled it off her hand and walked on to the next car. We all knew we weren't supposed to feed the animals. But what is a girl to do when she is startled by a foreign creature sticking his head in her space?
Ladina and I remember fried chicken for lunch. It was fried in the morning and layered in a wide mouth gallon thermos which kept everything piping hot. This was a meal we stopped at a park to eat instead of eating while driving. I wonder how we washed our hands after that scrumptious greasiness? (the days before wet wipes) Maybe there was a well with a pump handle at the park.
Mom remembers that it was blistering hot across those prairies as we traveled on the Trans Canadian highway. We girls were not used to air conditioning in cars. We insisted that it would be cooler if we rolled the windows down and couldn't figure out why Dad told us to keep everything shut up.
Maybe Dad needed to stop for gas or maybe he was sick of our grumbling. One way or the other we soon stopped and met head on the heat of an oven as we piled out of the car. Maria says it was 100° F. Dad had no more trouble convincing us to keep the windows closed.
This brings me to the end of our memories and we still haven't arrived at the Martin Farm near Dunster, BC. Maybe tomorrow...
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