Mother and Dad had gone to Southern California for a Lions Club National Convention. I think I was in Jr High. They came home with stories of Knots Berry Farm and Disneyland. It sounded so wonderful. Then they told us that they would take us during spring vacation in March. We were all so excited. We borrowed Aunt Inez’s car because ours was too small or old I didn’t know why. All I cared about was that we were going. I remember the anticipation. The planning. We would leave on Tuesday in the evening and drive all night. There was talk about having to drive at night because the desert would be too hot. We did not have air conditioning in the car. Mother packed food to eat in the car. We took pillows. The front seat was a bench seat so that three could sit in the front. It was usually Richard. The rest of us were in the back. There was some of “He’s touching me” and “are we there yet” but for the most part I think we got along pretty well. We were used to road trips.
When we rode into Las Vegas It was a wonder. This was before the freeway and you drove right down Fremont Street and then down the Strip. It was as light as day, I had never seen so many lights. I don’t think we stopped, we just rode though. Then we settled in for the long drive. I think somewhere along the way Dad stopped the car and slept for a little bit. I think a police man knocked on the window and asked if we were OK and we couldn’t stay there. We were in California. The first thing we did was drive to the Beach for our first look at an ocean. We all took off our shoes and ran out into the water. It was cold. The beach sand was rough and rocky, not the smooth sand that I had imagined. Doug found a live star fish and wanted to keep it. Then we drove to the Motel we were going to stay at. I think the girls had a room to ourselves and Doug and Richard shared a room with Mom and Dad. The lady at the motel told Doug to put the star fish on the roof of a shed to dry out.
I don’t remember the order in which we did things. I remember stopping at some kind of market and Sandra, Kathryn and I bought big straw hats with handkerchief ties. We thought that Disneyland would be really sunny and we would need hats for protection. Dad took a picture of us riding the tea cups with those silly hats flying. They proved to be more of a bother than a help. But we sure thought we were stylish. We went to Knots Berry Farm first and looked around. It was more of a collection of old buildings like an old western town. There were lots of shops. But I don’t remember there being any amusement type rides. We went to Marine Land and saw the shows with the dolphins and whales. We went to the Hollywood Wax Museum and that was a lot of fun. They had statues of Keystone Cops all around the building and some of them were real and some were just statues and you could not tell them apart. I saw one of them following my Mother around and when she would turn around he would stop and then he tapped her on the shoulder and I thought she was going to faint. She nearly jumped out of her skin.
Then finally we went to Disneyland. We got there as soon as it opened and stayed all day. Mom and Dad promised us if we would not beg for food while we were there they would take us to nice restaurant. We all agreed. Disneyland was truly a wonderland. We had seen it being built on TV as we watched the Mickey Mouse Club and Walt Disney Presents. We rode every ride we could. It was wonderful. It was hard to imagine how it was all possible. We rode in a submarine, a boat down a river in Africa, a pirate ship through wonderland, and rocket ship to the moon. Remember this was before anyone had been to the moon. We wore ourselves out. Then it was back to the motel to dress for dinner. We went to a Polynesian Restaurant. We were all so hungry that everything was so good. Dad told us we could order anything we wanted. The waitress showed us how to use chop sticks. I had some shrimp that were served on bamboo skewers. Everything was different from anything I was familiar with. What a great adventure. Trying to act so grown up and sophisticated. But down deep knowing I was just a small town kid. But it was such a wonderful time. It is hard to believe that we were only there three days. We were back in school Monday morning.