Leaving on a jet plane

I've been traveling since I was a little kid.  I mean, really little.  By the time I was one, I had already traveled much of the "Wild West."  I got the travel bug from my mom.  She has pretty much been around the world at least once.  Maybe even twice at this point!  My grandparents were missionaries, so she grew up on a mission in Malawi, which is on the continent of Africa.  She didn't come to America until she was a teenager.

So travel we did!  Every summer we would pack up the, rather ugly, green and white bubble top van and hit as many states as we could.  Side note: I made my mom drop me off around the corner from school when she drove us in that thing...  That said, we saw a lot of the country in that van!  I have very fond memories of those trips.  My sister and I spent a lot of time reading (more her than me) and gazing out the window (more me than her).  Sometimes we'd fight over getting too close to the imaginary line that separated our two sides of the van.  My dad would drive and tell us the history of every destination that was on our path.  And even the history of stuff that was not...  My mom would navigate!  If it wasn't for her and her maps, we would have undoubtedly ended up in Timbuktu.  Actually, she's probably been there...

So in the spirit of those great Donaldson trips around the country, last summer I made a promise to my kiddos that every summer from this point on, we would travel to at least a couple new states and/or countries every year.  After all, they've got some catching up to do.

Originally we were going to go to 4-Corners, but since the kids were already in New York with their mother visiting family on Long Island, I thought hmmm, maybe we should do a road trip on the east coast.  And just like that, it was on!

We have decided to meet in Pennsylvania at Hershey Park, so the kids could get a good day of amusement park time in before the three of us set off on our adventure!  They are there now, and I fly out of LAX at 7am tomorrow morning.  Yikes, make that this morning.  It's now 1:03am...  I better get to bed!

    That's the old bubble top Ford.  I'm the "tough

    guy" on top.  A neighbor kid is hugging my leg.  

   And my little sister, Ann, is the red head on the left!

   Now you can understand why I did not want to be 

   dropped off at school in this thing...  My parents

   also had no problem voicing their politics on the

   back bumper...  Guess I got that from them too.

      That's my mom and my grandfather coming to

      America for the first time.  Ascension Island,

      between South America and Africa, is in the

      background.

   My grandmother, Gladys, (far right) was 

   a nurse on the mission.  She was quite an 

   amazing human being.  This was in the 

   late 1930s!

    That's yours truly at Monument Valley,

    picking up chicks at the age of one.

    Or in this case, they were picking me up...

    That's my mom and I at Grand Canyon.

    Back in 1969 there were no hand

    rails...  My mom grew up with leopards,

    venomous snakes and mosquito nets, so

    I'm pretty sure that "little drop" didn't 

    phase her!