If you didn't have a station wagon, you were certainly out of the ordinary. We decided it was time was us to blend in, so we went down to some little town just over the line in Pennsylvania and bought us a fancy, black Ford station wagon. It had a "way back' seat, a back seat and a front seat. The kids fought over who got the "way back" because they knew my arms or even my switch wasn't long enough to meet it's target back there. A station wagon was the SUV of the 70's and 80's and for good reason, if you had a family.
Before we purchased the station wagon, we tried our luck at family camping. We had a normal four door car. Trust me, a family of five can't put everything they need to camp in a tent in a four door sedan. But, we tried. Sollie fashioned a wooden box to hold the gear that would fit into the trunk to help organize the area for our regular stuff.
We made a few trips over to Lancaster County in the Amish Country to a nice little camp ground called Robin Hill, with some church friends. (We were going to a Baptist Church at that time, but that's another story) After a couple of those short week-end trips, we thought we were skilled enough to set out of a week-long vacation and to our hometown in Georgia, camping in the Smokies along the way down and the outer banks on the way home.
We had to squeeze in as much time as we could so we drove all the way to Cherokee, NC for our first stay. It was a pretty good place, with nice showers, and a lake for fishing. It does rain a lot in the mountains, however, and I think we may have had a total of 4 hours sunshine during our few days there. We toured the village at Cherokee, and the kids got their pictures taken with a real live Indian, complete with feathered headband and leather boots and loin cloth. By the end of the second full day, we were over our excitement. The cots were not comfortable, the rain misted through the canvas and we were damp all the time. The Coleman stove worked just like it was supposed to, but Sollie doesn't like to grill outside, so guess who wound up doing all the cooking? Sitting in the hot, humid night air around a campfire was not my idea of fun. The kids had tired of the fishing hole, and were cranky and didn't want to touch each other in the small tent where we were packed in like sardines. The mosquitoes were big as buzzards at night, but we did get them to catch lightening bugs one time.
After a couple of days in our home town, we proceeded back up the interstate to our destination of Nags Head, NC. It rained the whole way there, and after we unpacked and set up camp, it continued to rain, misting right through the canvas, making for a miserable, hot, damp and cranky bunch of campers. After a while, maybe a few hours enough to rest, we packed up that gear and headed home. That camping equipment was never used, by us, again. It brought a fair price in our garage sale just before we moved back to Georgia. We were definitely over camping. Period.
One summer, I rented a cottage at "the shore" and we set out for a week at the beach. True to form, Sollie was called to come back to the office, and he had to drive to Saddlebrook every day and back to the shore in the evening. Not a great vacation.
I did a lot of day trips in the new station wagon to find my way around, after I realized that not everybody in NJ was in the Mafia. One time, Teresa and I set out for some little town, just over the river, to visit the Mother of the Pastor in our hometown of Swainsboro. I found her home without a cell phone or GPS! Just plain old road map. Imagine that! She was gracious and we had a good visit and got home in time for the boys to get home from school. The drive over took us through some beautiful countryside with field stone houses, rail fences, and wildflowers. Several towns in the area were worthy of driving to, just to view the beauty and hopefully get to see someone famous. Peapack (yep, that's correct) was where Jackie Kennedy went to ride her horses. The locals tried to keep up with when she would be there, hoping to see her. There were other little villages with quaint houses and names like, Tewksbury, Schooley's Mountain, and Pohatcong. All worthy of a short day trip to shop or just take a drive.
Sollie had to go to Germany to the main factory and when he returned, I decided to surprise him at the JFK airport upon arrival. I took the three kids, we loaded in the station wagon, and headed out for New York, after dark. I had nothing but a road map and guts, but I drove there, and all four of us found our way to the gate to surprise Daddy as he got off the plane. We drove home listening to all the stories about Dusseldorf, Germany and wondering how an uneducated country boy from south Georgia could be so lucky to have all the blessings and experiences of life in the city. The answer is simple. He was a genius at his trade.
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