This week's question, "where did you go on vacations as a child," instantly brings to mind a whirling slide-show through my brain of things we did as a family.
The first big vacation I remember was between first and second grade when Dad took Mom and me with him to New York City for an APMI (American Powder Metallurgy Institute) conference at the Waldorf Astoria.
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| Postcard of Waldorf Astoria posted in family scrapbook. Circa 1970 |
We didn't have a cabin we went to every summer. We saw my grandparents regularly, but I don't think we ever thought of those as our vacation. I remember regular trips on Saturdays or Sundays to a State Park with a picnic lunch to eat before we took a family hike. Dad and I went fishing; ball games; took longer trips to see State Capitols; our whole family made annual trips to Wisconsin's State Fair.
I believe our 1970 flight on United Airlines to New York City's La Guardia Airport was my flight. That vacation is a series of snap-shots. During the conference, Mom and Dad went to a banquet and arranged with the hotel for a babysitter who came to our room to watch me. Every morning, or it seemed like every morning, we ate breakfast in a café at Rockefeller Plaza and I fell in love with French crullers. Mom and I were part of a live studio audience for a game show.
All three of us went to Radio City Music Hall for a matinee, which included the Rockettes dancing, an acrobat performed, and we watched "The Out-of-Towners" on the giant screen. We walked through Times Square and a man asked my Dad for spare change. We rode the subway and visited the Statue of Liberty, but only walked up as far as the Lady's feet.
We ate dinner in the "Top of the Sixes." We made it to the observation deck of the Empire State Building and saw the World Trade Center under construction. It seemed like the largest and tallest city in the world to my 6-year old self.
For a couple of summers, we drove 250 miles from Janesville to Chetek to spend time in Grandpa and Grandma Mossner's lake-side cabin. As I recall, fishing was a big part of each day either in a boat or from the dock. Grandpa and Grandma were there for two weeks - we stayed with them several days - a week, tops.
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| Our tickets to the Observation deck of the Empire State Building in vacation scrapbook. |
Dad took us along to another conference in Toronto. The thing I remember about that trip is the story Mom told afterward. I had saved some money to buy something to bring home and I wanted a small statue of a Canadian Mountie on his horse. This must have been near the end of our stay, because I recall going in and out of many stores and not finding one.
Finally, I gave up the search and paid for a ceramic statue of a Mountie standing at attention. Not long after that we went in another store and there was a Mountie on his horse. I was devastated and apparently had a tantrum, or darn close, because that's what I wanted. I don't recall how it shook out, but I had that Mountie on horseback for many, many years.
I bet there were seven or eight summers where my parents left me at my grandparents in East Peoria, Illinois. Which may have been more of a vacation for them, now that I think about it. Some years, I'd spend a night or two at Mom's parents, but the trip was to see Grandpa and Grandma Mossner and 'work' with Grandpa as he delivered print jobs and newspapers to business and paper carriers. Grandma did the same job in her car a few days a week driving her car while I went with Grandpa in his Dodge Van.
While I may not have been much help, it was great fun being Grandpa's little helper and following him around Tazwell Publishing; load the van; and make the deliveries. Not every day, but fairly often, Grandpa's truck found its way to a donut shop around 9 o'clock so we'd be ready for a full day on the job.
Some times, they took time off their retirement jobs so we could go camping. One memorable trip was a long weekend at Lake Shelbyville in southern Illinois.
In 1973, Dad and I started traveling to state capitals. Over seven years we visited 31 - from Bangor to Phoenix, plus several days in Washington, D.C.
While the trips were about the statehouses, we took in other sites. The Hershey factory in Pennsylvania and Kellogg's Cereal in Battle Creek, Michigan. Bryce Canyon in Utah and the Grand Canyon. We drove up Lookout Mountain and toured the Coors Brewery in Golden, Colorado. We were in New Hampshire in early July and found snow in a cave on top of a mountain.
The last big family vacation was in 1980, a year before I went to college. The four of us - Mom, Dad, Danielle (Age 4 - 1/2), and I - stayed in a cabin in Three Lakes, Wisconsin in late July or early August. Since it was summer, that's how we packed. Then the temperature dropped into the 30s, forcing a hasty trip to Eagle River nearby to buy jeans and sweatshirts. We went out in the boat. We visited a cranberry bog, and we had an epic family game of Monopoly.
After college we the extended Mossner family gathered for a couple of Christmases and several trips to the Wisconsin State Fair. Since we didn't have a family cabin, the Fair remains the family vacation tradition.
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