Niagara Falls

This wasn’t our first trip after our marriage. Our first trip, after our honeymoon, was to Florida. I will tell about it later.

David was an infant in a bassinet. We had visited my sister, Olive, in Ossining, NY and decided to extend our trip.

We were in Buffalo at lunch time and looked for curb service so David could stay asleep in the car. Finally, we stopped and asked where there was a curb service restaurant. “There aren’t any up North. It’s too cold.” We found a “Take out” Fish & Chips and ate in the car.

That’s about all I remember about that trip.

You know what this is

David and Jeanie were little - I think about one and two. They stayed with Mary Ellen’s parents while Mary Ellen, my sister Jane, her husband Carlyle and I took a trip together to the Smoky Mountains. We went in our, newly acquired ’51 Nash Ambassador (Of course it wasn’t new).

I think it was on this trip that I noticed, In the mirror, rubber flying from a rear tire. I was traveling at the speed limit but felt or heard nothing. The Ambassador was a heavy car that handled well and, with over drive, got good gas mileage.

Our first overnight stop was at a park. Jane and Mary Ellen slept in the car. Carlyle and I slept on a picnic table. For breakfast, we gathered some stones and sticks for a fireplace and fire. We cooked one dozen eggs and sausage. Um-Um good.

We stopped at an overlook to fix sandwiches for lunch. While Mary Ellen and Jane were getting food from the trunk of the car, Carlyle and I were enjoying the scenery, including a black bear in a trash can. I guess the bear smelled the food and headed for the car. We hollered, “Bear, bear - get in the car.” The girls thought we were teasing. They looked up just in time to get in the car without closing the trunk. I slammed the trunk lid, hitting the bear’s nose. It ran away.

We saw many bears on that trip. Mary Ellen and I traveled the same route much later without seeing any bears.

Our first trip to Florida was soon after our marriage. Our car, a ’40 Dodge, needed repair, so I borrowed Daddy’s ‘48 Plymouth. The front seat in the Dodge was more comfortable than the one in the Plymouth so I traded seats for this trip.

Mary Ellen had never been to Florida. She couldn’t believe the weather would be warm the last week in December. (It could be warm, but wasn’t warm the whole time.) She needed the coat she took and I wished I had taken a warmer one.

We stayed in an ocean-side motel in Vero Beach for three nights. The weather was nice, but not swimming weather. We enjoyed the stay.

On the way home, we stayed in an ocean-side hotel in Northern Florida. It was 40^o. We put on our coats and walked to the beach. The wind was strong and cold! We retreated fast.

There wasn’t much room in the car so we tied a bag of oranges on top of the trunk. Needless to say, they froze by the time we reached home.

The whole trip, lodging, gas and food, cost us only $95.00. Now, (2001) it is common to spend that much for one night in a motel.

We took many other trips to Florida. As the children got older, we made the trip to St. Augustine for Easter several years in a row. Later, for several years, we would go in February to visit Disney, Cypress Gardens or the Keys.

When David was 15 and had his learner’s driving permit, we rented a cloth top pop-up camper and drove to Key Largo. David did most of the driving. The car was a ‘65 Rambler station wagon. I had just bought a brand new ‘70 Hornet, but neither car had air conditioning. We would have been crowded in the Hornet. The Rambler had a lot of miles on it, but seemed in good repair. At least I thought so. On the way down, the water pump gasket started leaking and the car ran hot. I made a gasket from a piece of cardboard and filled the radiator from the water cooler. That didn’t seem to be a big problem. However, on the way home, the engine started to knock. I took over the driving and drove at 45 miles per hour, hoping it would get us home. The knocking got worse, so we stopped at a filling station in Georgia. I paid the station attendant $100 to take us home. That made 7 of us in a two door sports car. I also gave him the title to the Rambler. It was Sunday so he couldn’t find a hitch to bring the camper. I rented a U-Haul hitch and went back in the Hornet the next day.

On the way home with the camper, the tread flew off one of the camper tires. I was a day late returning the rented camper and offered to pay for the tire. I wasn’t charged for the extra day or the tire. A year later, I bought the same camper. It made several trips to Florida and other places.

The first camper was pretty ragged, so we sold it to a neighbor and bought a better used Star Craft Pop-up. It served well, but we soon wanted better. Our last camper was a 23’ Award travel trailer. We took it to Florida twice, pulling it with an ‘85 Pontiac 6000 diesel station wagon. On a trip to the Keys, I could only get up to 45 mph on the causeway South of Miami. The car had over 90,000 on the odometer. In my mind, I thought, “I guess the car is about to give up. We are a long way from home, so I will keep going and not say anything is wrong. A little farther won’t make that much difference.” The car was OK. There was a strong head wind.

L’tl Rover near Lake Okeechobee, FL

Croatian National Forest is on the Neuse River near Seymore Johnson Air Force Base. This outing was not sponsored by Honeywell, but it is a result of maintenance I scheduled for the Honeywell computer at Seymore Johnson. I scheduled the maintenance for Friday afternoon so the family could visit the park while I worked, then we spent the night and Saturday there. We intended to sleep in sleeping bags on foam rubber out under the stars. The stars didn’t shine. Instead the rain came down. We all slept(?) in the car. Most of both days were nice so it was not a total “wash-out”.

At low tide shortly after dark, many visitors gigged flounder. The water was ankle deep. Flash lights spotted the flounder’s eyes under the water. It looked like fun.

The next week-end, we went back equipped with a tent, a gig, net and flashlight. The tide was high right after dark, so David and I got up for low tide about 2AM. We couldn’t spot any flounder.

I had desired to visit Yellowstone for some time. We had the Award travel trailer and a new Caprice station wagon, so we made the trip. We traveled about 300 miles a day. Most of the campgrounds were pleasant. One campground was at a fairground. The fair was not in session. There was no attendant. A sign on the bath house said to pick a site and someone would come around to collect $5.00. All sites had full hook-ups. No one came. We mailed a check to the address on the sign.

After crossing the Continental Divide, there was an eighteen-mile down-grade. The camper had surge breaks which means that when the car breaks, the camper tong would telescope to set the camper breaks. I put the car in a lower gear to save the car breaks, but that meant that the camper breaks stayed on for all eighteen miles. The breaks got hot and grease ran out of the hubs. I spent the next morning having the camper wheel bearings re-packed with grease.

We were lucky to get in the main campground at Yellowstone without reservations. It was the only campground with full hook-ups. It cost more than the others, but the others didn’t even have electricity.

We signed up for the guided bus tour for the next morning. We got to the starting point early, but our name was not on the list and the bus was full. We decided to drive. The geysers, mud pots, etc were very interesting.

Old Faithful                      Mud Pots

Morning Glory Pool             Yellowstone Falls

Entering the Park               Yellowstone Lake

We made a leisurely return trip that included Glacier National Park in Montana, an overnight stay in Canada and returned to the states through Michigan and more.

L’tl Rover was still pretty new and needed exercise. Mary Ellen's niece was getting married in Maryland. The beyond beckoned. We went.

The wedding was nice. L’tl Rover behaved well.

Traffic was heavy. Tolls were expensive. Leaving the New Jersey Turnpike, I asked if there was a way through New York without paying tolls. "Yes, just stay on 1-95." Why not? I'll tell you "why not" - after going that way. 1-95 through Brooklyn was all trucks, except us. There were four lanes of traffic - two each way with a concrete barrier in between. There were no shoulders - solid walls instead. There was hardly a car length between trucks. We were sandwiched between two trucks with one on our left not more that two feet away - all going 55 miles per hour.

We spent the night at a mediocre campground in Maine. Then on through Canada to the tip of Nova Scotia. We camped next to a Big Rig occupied by honeymooners. We
visited a reconstructed early settler's neighborhood and bought some bread made the old way. It was OK.

On the return trip, we stopped in Brunswick, Canada to view a site where the tide was forty feet between low and high. The tide was out and no water was in sight.

This time our campground in Maine was much nicer. Domestic rabbits ran wild over the campground. A sign in the office read, "Be kind to our rabbits and black flies." The black flies did bite.

A very nice trip.

Kee’s

Yes. We visited the Florida Keys. We also visited my sister, Jane Kee and her family several times in West Virginia and North Carolina. Our first visit was on our honeymoon. They lived high on the hill behind the WV state capital. Later, they moved to a duplex, also in Charleston, WV. The last place they lived in WV was in St Albans (near Charleston). They now live in Boiling Spring Lakes, NC.

Family Reunions

Daddy incorporated the farm, supposedly to save inheritance tax. Stock was distributed to family members. The annual stock holders meetings doubled as family reunions. Of course, Daddy was president of the corporation Attendance was good at the most meetings. The meetings were held on Mansfield Farms in Hanover County, VA.

Olive Wolters, Frances Schmetzer,              Reunion at Olive’s, May 1991
Bill Myers, Mary Vitale, Jane Kee                                                                    
(Taken at an early reunion)                                                                    

We had quite a family reunion at Tommy Proffitt’s (Mary Ellen’s dad) 90^th birthday.

Tommy’s 90^th birthday

Jeff Myers, Karen Wall,
Sheila Myers, Ever (Sheila’s daughter),
Tommy Proffitt, Mary Ellen Myers, Tommy Wall,
Sandell Wall, Nancy Wall.

Another great reunion was at Tommy Wall’s mother’s farm near Cameron, NC in March of 2000. It was Nancy’s birthday.

Mrs. Wall’s Farm House

Holden Beach

For several years we met with our children and families (and sometimes friends) at Holden Beach, NC in November. Our favorite cottage was “Captain Quarters” but it was

not always available. It was old, but large. It had 6 bedrooms, 5 bath rooms and a large kitchen. The price was much better than other, smaller, cottages.

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Captains Quarters

Working Vacation

Several men and a few ladies from our church in Elm City went to Florida to volunteer with the “Baptist Men” to repair damage done by hurricane Andrew. Mary Ellen and I drove our '91 Chevrolet Caprice station wagon pulling “Little Rover” and an extension ladder on the roof rack. We stayed a whole week.

We camped at a church with several suitable acres near Homestead, FL. There were electric and water lines for campers to use. There were quite a few campers and tents. Every day a tank truck would come by so we could empty our waste water tanks.

The men were divided into work groups with one experienced man in charge of each group. Most of the work was repairing roofs. Mary Ellen would go the the work site with us and picked up trash (mostly broken shingles) and what ever else there was there that she could do.

One job was replacing sheet rock that had been damaged by water from the leaking roof. I was asked to do the finishing (Applying tape to the joints and plastering over the tape). I knew from the experience building the house at Tuttles that I did not have the right knack for finishing sheet rock. I begged off from that job. We also did some repair work on the church building.