Family vacations Part 1

Growing up in the 1960's our family vacations were combined with my dads work.  During this time frame my dad was a regional sales manager for a large manufacture of heating and air conditioners.  When he would be called to the National office, we would take or vacation.  I never knew the difference,  when we would be at some hotel, my mom would just say, your dad has to visit some of his work people so we will just stay here and swim all day.  What a great time we all had, than my dad would finish our business and we would continue on this wonderful journey.  These journeys would start at our home in Overland Park, Ks then we always headed west.  We would all pile in his company car, a Buick 225,  my dad driving, me in the middle and my mom next to the window.  In the back seat were my brothers.  My mom always packed a large bag of food to eat on the way, with a wet wash cloth in a plastic bag.  In my moms bag was things for us to do and lots of books to read.  It was so exciting to start out,  I never knew what we would find on the way.  My mom and dad always made it very exciting to be on the road,  I loved it whenever we would stop for lunch of for the evening all of us would see what states the licences plates were from in the parking lot.  Once we saw one car that was from Hawaii and in the same parking lot from Alaska.  How about stopping to see the worlds largest ground hog, ( it was made of concrete).  Lots of our surprises on the way were historical markers along the way, even today I look for historical markers and always stop to read them.  The routes were always different, but we always ending up in LA.  The southern route took us to 4 corners,  where 4 states all come together,  to this day, I can remember what I was wearing and how we all took a drink of Coke from our glass coke bottles in a different state, or how we all  put one hand in a different state, and our feet in the other 2, so each of us could claim that we were in all of the states at the same time.  My dad would take his 8 mm camera out and record where we were,  later on my mom would convert these memories on a VHS tape.  My mom and dad taught us Fly me to the Moon or Mares eat oats, and we all had interesting conversations about current events and historical events that shaped our country.  Little did I know how these family vacations would shape my choice in a college major or my love of genealogy.