1982 Summer Vacation

With Dad, Sooz, Jim and John

In Summer of 1982, Dad rented a station wagon and took us on a trip up north. We visited his parents, his sister Marilyn, and of course many of the scenic loveliness of the West Coast of the United States. The text was written by Sooz.

Click here for pictures.

June 21, 1982

Princess Diana had a baby boy today, so I'm sure everybody's up in arms about it. BFD. We start our second West Coast vacation this Saturday so I've got four days to become amusing and accurate to reveal the detail-by-detail account of our exciting 'trip'. Johnny will probably start singing "she's a Davis girl" when he sees me in the morning. Boy--will this be a fun trip or what? Johnny and I are bringing tapes to listen to on his portable stereo radio cassette jobby and of course, once in awhile we'll blast the music without benefit of headphones to startle the man in the driver's seat. Speaking of throwing objects out windows (we were?), Johnny and Jimmy seem to have a plan brewing about taking some saved up ketchup packets, etc., and throwing them at hitchhikers. I'll have to take a picture of that one.

June 26, 1982

The first day of our travelling brings us to a stop in Yosemite. We woke up about 5:00 this morning and got ready and stuffed the car and were off by 6:40 a.m. The windows in the back don't roll down so the only rock/ketchup throwing we'll be doing is from the front seat. Life's rough.... I, of course, sat in the front seat first, with a great view of the L. A. traffic conditions. The drive was fairly uneventful until we hit the exciting town of Fresno (!) and hit the local McDonald's. Two of the patrons there were vastly impressed with Johnny's KMET shirt. I wonder what reaction he'll get with his satanic Black Sabbath T-shirt. We also had fun insulting (from within the protective confines of the car) the "beaners''. After Fresno, we started to gain some altitude and finally reached the mountainous part of the state. We first went to Glacier Point in Yosemiteand took quite a few pictures of falls, mountains, and the great Half Dome. We left there and stopped at a few places along the road back to where we would be staying for the night. (Wawona) Finally we arrived at Wawona and checked into our cabin, which is very nice. It has four beds and a bathroom, a kitchen with all the utensils, a fireplace (no t.v. thank God) and a nice spacious living room. We rested for awhile, and then went back into "town" and bought some groceries. We came back, rested some more, and then went down to a big stream which was very nice. Nice, nice, nice. More pictures were taken, of course. Jimmy tried to fish with a fishing pole lent to him by Jay, but there weren't any fish, so we left. Before that he had fed some bread to a deer with a wild twitch. Our language had already gotten pretty gross, with Jimmy in the lead for first place. Our favorite word of the day is "slope", (slang for Vietnamese people) Stay tuned for tomorrow's first place winner. ...Having bought some yummy frozen hamburger at the local market, we decided to cook it for dinner. This turned out to be a major mistake because it stunk like hell and we couldn't bring ourselves to eat it. We ended up throwing it in the trash for the bears to get sick on. Daddy said that we went from Childs' Choice to Childs 'Afterbirth, which grossed us all out. We settled for some grapes instead. We may even go rafting tomorrow when visiting Yosemite Valley. Right now everybody is just kicking back and amusing themselves—playing cards, singing idiotically to Led Zeppelin wearing headphones, and writing boring gossip into a diary. More tomorrow.

June 27, 1982

It sure gets dark here at night, but luckily we have sunlight till 8:30 p.m. so it's not bad at all. I got up at 7:00 a.m. Daddy got up soon after I did—the weather was beautiful and we schlepped about the cabin whilst slowly getting ready for day. We had a scrambled eggs & toast breakfast then soon Johnny and Jimmy woke up and we got ready to leave. We drove to Yosemite Valley where we were endlessly stopping at places off of the road to take pictures. We were thinking of renting a raft to go down the river a while but the line was endless and the river ride would have been three hours, which we did not have to spend by that time. We returned to our cabin about 3:00 p.m. after getting gas at the local rat market and buying some more groceries. We rested our bones at the cabin for awhile, the Jimmy and I went down to the stream for an exciting look-see, then back up to the cabin to bum around some more, by then it was off to dinner. The meal was five courses—pretty good food, but a long wait between courses. We took a quick walk up the road and discovered some mini-falls, then back to the cabin. Johnny, Jimmy and Daddy are playing gin and gawking at the naked woman across the way, while Daddy opens the wine. Off to the races. Let's all get bombed! Oh yes. The saying of the night was "lick balls" with "Jism lips" coming in second.

June 29, 1982 (Tuesday)

The last two days have been cloudy and dreary looking, so the picture taking has come to almost a halt. We left Yosemite about 7:00 a.m. on Monday and it was already cloudy. It rained in spots as we passed through Yosemite Valley again, taking pictures this time with clouds around the rocks. We drove all along the road, getting higher and higher (highest was something like 9,600 feet) and seeing more and more snow. We stopped once in awhile for pictures and so Johnny and Jimmy could throw some snowballs. We then went on our way in the rain to the other side of the mountain where we saw a dreary Mono lake and spent most of the rest of our time looking for breaks in the clouds. We passed through Nevada twice—the first time we stopped for a gaggy cheeseburger scum lunch at a restaurant full of casinos, which we (the under 21 crowd) weren't allowed near as I found out when I was told by some creep to please stay away from the corrupt gambling machines. Daddy played five quarters of Johnny's on one for us to see, but he didn't win a damn thing. I couldn't believe the amount of money people were pumping into those things. We soon left the place, then drove into cloudy California and back into Nevada once more to pass by the wonderful city of Reno--by that time I was driving and I drove all the way to Susanville. Driving was not all that easy, though—I was tired when I was through. I did, however, get to pass cars a few times, which I've never done before. Of course, I've never driven long, boring highways before either. Susanville was the picture of excitement. We quickly checked into our "spacious" room and dropped dead for couple of hours. We went to dinner at Jerry's restaurant—the happy place to eat---then ambled on over the great highway to Sierra lanes where they had 10 (count em!) whole lanes. We opted for the arcade, cashed in some dollars for quarters and played some pinball, etc. Finally, we played some hockey--Daddy and me against Johnny and Jimmy—Daddy and I ended up winning. A lady who had been ardently watching our consummate skill at the game offered to give us a quarter so we could play one more time so she could watch, but we declined. We went back to our motel room—I got to sleep with Jimmy (ooooh booooy!) as we were supplied with two double beds. We watched some dull t.v. and then went to sleep. This morning we got up about 6:45 a.m., got ready to go, went over to good old Jerry's to have some great breakfast, then it was off on the cloudy road to Lassen Volcanic National Park. We encountered sunspots (oh, hope!) along the way in the beautiful countryside between Lassen and Susanville but the clouds were as thick as doo-doo for miles and miles. We couldn't see jack in Lassen —we had to wait at the chalet/cafeteria/gift shop for the road to open because it had snowed the night before and they were clearing the road. Finally we just took off and encountered no roadblocks, so we went for the whole road through Lassen. It was very cloudy—in fact, most of the time we were in the clouds so visibility was piss poor. We encountered more and more snow and finally hit some areas near the summit that were covered with soft snow of the night before. Some of the walls, however, were about 20 feet high. We stopped at one place where we had a full-on snowball fight with Daddy taking pix. It was fun. I had been smart enough to bring my gloves though, so I was the only one with warm hands. Jimmy thinks I'm a wench because I wouldn't lend him my gloves.

June 30, 1982

After we got out of the huge snowbanks in Lassen we went down the mountain and drove over in the clouds to Lake Shasta, and then to Mount Shasta which we took pictures of. We had lunch in a shit-small town called Weed in California then drove into Oregon and finally reached Crater Lake, which was invisible most of the time under the cloud bank. We stayed at Crater Lake lodge on the third floor with a "view" of the lake. Our room was rather old fashioned —we had a bathtub with plugs and chains on them. Great place. We bought the usual bevy of post cards upon our visit to the main floor, then went to a rather late dinner at 8:00 p.m. The food was good, though. We went back up to our room after dinner, and got ready for bed, hoping the weather would change. Not of course before Jimmy entertained us all with a condom he had bought at a gas station a while back. The next morning the sun did manage to peek through, and we got some good pictures later on. We had breakfast downstairs and then walked around the edge of the lake and decided to leave right away instead of waiting endlessly for the sun to break through. We were soon packed up and ready to go by 9:00 a.m. We went around the rim for awhile taking pictures then turned back and headed for exciting Highway 5 to the west. Went to Eugene and looked at Daddy's old college and got to see the old fraternity house they used for the movie "Animal House"--it still looks like shit. I've written a few postcards so far. After a crappy cloudy drive up Highway 5 and another thrilling Denny's lunch we zipped on over to the coast where it was nice and sunny. (!) Luckily the weather stayed with us all the way up. Johnny and Jimmy had fun counting all the bug suicides on the front windshield and noting which ones were the "best looking". We had an A & W ice cream cone—it was actually a drive-in! Finally the long drive was over and we reached Cannon Beach and checked into our Tolavana Inn rooms—one has a tremendous view of good old Haystack and the other is simply an adjoining room. We've left the doors leading to both rooms open to enable everybody to congregate in the room with the decent view. We even have a kitchen! We quickly took advantage of what was left of sunlight. It was 7:30--and wandered onto the beach with cameras, etc. (those of us with instamatics wisely left them back in Fountain Valley). We walked to where the old S. S. Childs beachhouse was and took pictures. Then Daddy went back to buy breakfast groceries so we went up the beach near Haystack, walked around while Johnny took pictures using his tripod of the varying degrees of the sunset. We then walked back where Daddy was waiting and quickly got ready for dinner, then went to the Driftwood Restaurant, which was excellent, then came back to our room and lazed around. The word of the day was: buttwheeze. More exciting facts later.

July 3, 1982

The weather has been crappy for the past three days here, so we really haven't done all that much. Thursday we took a few walks on the beach and cancelled our plans to hike Ecola State Park because it started to rain a little. We made some use of the game room—playing ping pong and pinball—they had an indoor swimming pool but we didn't use it. At times it got slightly sunny but then the sun would disappear back into the clouds again. Daddy, Johnny and I decided to play Frisbee at one point in the afternoon. The wind was so strong throwing just sucked the big one but we did get to walk the Frisbee though--the wind was so strong the disc seemed to be taking a walk down the beach. The rest of the time Thursday was spent reading and listening to Daddy's "music" on tape. We enjoyed the room, though. Friday morning we slowly got ready to leave Tolavana Inn and go to the Blue Gull Motel—we finally left our room around 12 noon then checked into the "fucking shack" that we are in now. It is pretty small, with a big kitchen and a room with a double bed--the couch in the living room folds out into a double bed and we even have a bathroom with hot water! We immediately headed for the laundromat, threw in our stinking clothes and went back to the "fucking shack" to watch a match between Billie Jean King and Chris Evert Lloyd. Johnny kept calling King a "lezbo". She does look like a man. Chris won the game, much to Johnny's delight. He said it was a victory for heterosexuality. Jimmy and Daddy had left during the game to dry our hopefully-still-there clothes. After watching the game, we decided to go into Seaside to have lunch and mess around the main street. We played some games--shooting at targets, skeeball—and "the men" went on bumper cars (they give me headaches) and go-carts. We had lunch at "Pig n' Pancake"--a class "A" restaurant. We walked around a little more, then drove to Cannon Beach, where we walked around bookshops, galleries and bakeries. We then went back to the rat dump and messed around until dinner time, went to The Whaler, had a nice dinner where the waitress had the eye for Daddy--we went back again where Jimmy finally got to take his "raspy shit" and Johnny with tripod and camera and I headed down to the beach to take pictures of the nice sunset, We were rained upon though, with Johnny almost losing his camera equipment to the waves. When we finally got back it was 10 p.m. and we were still wet.

July 7, 1982

These are the last few days of our vacation. I think everybody is rather looking forward to getting back to normalcy. I am involved in watching a silly James Bond movie whilst writing this mess. (For Your Eyes Only) Back to past events, ...Saturday the 3rd we spent the night at the Blue Gull. It had been gradually been getting sunny that day so we went on the Ecola Park Trail which we found led back to the damn road—real exciting! We took the road back to our car and drove back to the "shack". That night Johnny and I set out right after dinner at the Whaler (where the waitress said "goodbye Y'all" in a most inviting tone of voice) and I watched Johnny take pictures on the beach. He took pictures for about an hour until Daddy and Jimmy showed up, also taking pictures. Soon we all settled down for a game of frisbee, and when sunset came, around 9 p.m., we sat and watched while Dad, Johnny and other people took pictures of the sunset and the fishing boats just coming for the night. The next morning we took in breakfast at a local diner, then walked in the rain back to the shack to get ready to leave. We quickly packed and left, cancelling our plans of the night before to stay on the beach that morning for an hour or two after checking out. We drove to Portland with cloudy weather and visited the old Rutland house and other assorted former dwellings of Daddy's. We then had a great lunch at the Portland downtown Burger King (#1525), left our comments about their service, then proceeded to Vancouver, checking into Ferryman's Hotel and resting a bit before going over to Marilyn and Wayne's house. We finally went over there about 3:30. We had a good time visiting everybody--Jeff wasn't there most of the time, though. We stayed for an early dinner then started our 4th of July celebration around 7 p.m. Mike had all sorts of fireworks (m-80's, bottle rockets) plus the traditional box of fireworks, so we were out there practically all night having a good time. Their dog Pepper tried to eat a few of the fireworks as they went off and managed to get blown in the mouth a few times. Fucking stupid dog.... Jeff showed up around 8 with his girlfriend Lori and lit off a few fireworks, including an m-50 which he used to blow up a bucket with. The next morning, Daddy went to Kathy Long's house to visit while Jimmy went to Marilyn's to bone up on pinball and whatnot. Johnny and I took the morning off and rested and caught up on postcards, etc. We went to Marilyn and Wayne's later on, where we played some pinball and talked for awhile before going to a restaurant by the Columbia River called Who-song and Larry's Cantina where they had singing and dancing waiters and a puppet -that scared the hell out of Johnny. It was in honor of Jimmy's birthday. Jeff took Lori along so Johnny and I talked to them most of the time. Our dinner was long--3 hours— of fun and we went back to Marilyn and Wayne's house to sit and take pictures for awhile, We finally said goodbye and went back to the motel. We looked at the eclipse of the moon for awhile, then went to bed.

The next morning we got up early and drove out of Vancouver (saw Mt. Hood in the hazy distance) and drove down the sunny Oregon coast from Lincoln City and visited a few beaches. We finally hit Port Orford where we messed around on the beach and the rocks trying to find a place to fish. Had a Campbell's soup shit dinner at the local restaurant (Bartlett's was closed) then went back and soon hit the hay to get ready for another day of travelling. We again woke early and had breakfast down the road a bit--surprisingly, no one had farted all that much the night before even though we did get wine and cheese with crackers. Oh well. We went down the last part of the Oregon coast hitting all the exciting towns--then down to California with thier wonderfully clean and plentiful rest stops alongside the road—lunch at Burger King in Eureka and a trip through the redwoods with Johnny throwing saved-for-months Jelly at the signs. Jimmy got his rock throwing permission to sit up front and throw rocks at signs for awhile--then I took my turn and tried my hand at the rocks. I was successful a few times, then tried the jelly and upon the third try managed not only to hit the sign but hit the car and myself with the jelly as it boomeranged back into my face. Yep--l'm good. Anywaaaaay.... We drove through a drive- thru tree but didn't really walk around all that much. We got to Garberville early and here we are. More details later. Yes ...Bond fucked the chick....

July 10, 1982 (Saturday)

It's been two weeks since we started our vacation as we embark on the long drive home tomorrow. I've had a good time. The past few days have been pretty mellow visiting the grandparents--I've just been resting, walking, reading, looking at pictures of relatives I haven't seen in ages, talking to Grandma and Grandpa. I swam yesterday with Johnny and Jimmy. We also saw E.T., which was good. Everybody seems anxious to get back, though. We're already reminiscing about earlier parts of our trip. The weather here has been perfect. Today we all sat on the shady grass in front of their place and talked for a few hours.

The next day was the long drive home—I drove part of the time and even got stopped by a cop for speeding (who, me?) but he kindly let me go, giving me hints about common sense and driving...

The End