A vacation that was a knockout

While our four kids were home, we always tried to take a good family vacation.

One year we took a month, and in our Chevy Impala we took off for an intended trip to Houston, Texas, then over to San Diego and up the West Coast.

I mention the Impala because there wasn’t a center console, and we had wide seats front and back. 

That put three in front and three in back with a rotation system so everyone had a chance to sit in front.

We took off through Idaho and stopped at my wife’s folks’ and family. Then we were off to Utah, and started popping in to national parks along the way.

It was my first time driving to Texas. What a big state.  Later I visited Texas on numerous occasions, always by flying.

We stopped in Dallas and drove the route President Kennedy took when he was shot and killed.

We stayed several days with my brother who lived in Houston, and I was surprised and not a bit pleased to find that he had become a Texan.

On the trip, I developed the plan to leave for our next stop early in the morning, always trying to stop where there was something to do and early enough to have time to do it.

Carlsbad Cavern was one of those types of stops. We signed up for the long tour, which was some three hours long.

I remember our tour guide was telling us to be careful and don’t run into any stalactites. I remember distinctly that those were the last words I heard. I had been reading a brochure, and I ran right into one. My knees buckled, and I was going down and out but was helped by a member of the family.

The stalactite cut a big gash in my head, and I was bleeding pretty good. I think the tour guide was pretty disgusted with me.

We came to a wide place where there was someone to give me first aid.

The incident was, then and ever since, something that the kids smiled and laughed about, and still do. It is the only time that I have been knocked out, so to speak.

That was the high point, or low point, depending on how you look at it, of the entire trip.

Tombstone was a great stop, and we all got to stand on boot hill.

We stopped in a store where you could challenge Wyatt Earp to a quick draw. I beat the machine on a quick draw.

The zoo in San Diego, Disneyland and Knotts Berry Farm, and several days in San Francisco, were on my list, and we enjoyed the lot.

But the high-water mark by vote of the kids was the Hearst Castle tour.

While parts of the long trip are remembered by the kids, they got the biggest laugh out of the incident at Carlsbad Cavern.

The Hearst Castle was a strange and wonderful stop.

You had to catch a bus to make the 15-mile-plus trip to the place. The state of California ran the tours.

There were four separate tours, and you had to return to the bottom of the road and take the bus up again, making it time consuming and more expensive.

I remember that Hearst had visited this room in Europe and liked it, so he purchased the room, had it dismantled and shipped it to the Castle and had it reassembled.

The rooms and articles in them were fascinating.