by Jan Shoop
Sunday night we had a family dinner at our house. We all sat around the table after dinner and started reminiscing about fun family vacations.
When I was young, my mom, dad, brother and I went to San Diego every summer. We had a wonderful time, staying at the Beach Cottages, lying on the beach, building sandcastles and enjoying the ocean.
This was back in the time when it was a long drive to San Diego from Tucson. Cars didn’t have air conditioning, they went about 60 mph and to make it over the mountains we had to carry water to cool the car down every so often. We would drive to Yuma and spend the night staying at the Stardust Motel and then get up the next morning, leaving early, and finish our drive to San Diego.
One summer we took our boat over or tried. We got part way across the mountains and the car stalled and overheated and we had to unhitch the boat. Somehow, my dad found a friend who hooked the boat up to his car and pulled it up the mountain. Then they unhitched the boat again and re-hooked it to our car.
Once we got to the beach my brother, Jim, headed for the pier with his fishing pole and lunch money where he spent the day talking with the fishermen. I headed for the beach with my book, beach towel and a big hat. And my mom and dad headed for the car dealer to buy a bigger car so we could get home. I can’t remember for sure, but I don’t think we ever took the boat out into the water.
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