It’s fun to see how a young couple who struggled to make ends meet reach a place in their early married life to now own a new home and a new car. Daddy had worked his way into a good paying job and had gained the respect of two influential men in the newspaper business. Now that Mother and Daddy were beginning to reap the benefits of their hard work, they began to take a yearly vacation.
In 1954, two years before I was born, their family vacation
was a trip across the Continental Divide through New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado. They made stops at The Petrified Forest,
The Painted Desert, The Grand Canyon, skirting Monument Valley (cross Indian
territory, most likely Navaho or Apache). Of course, the trip would not be
complete unless they found a small fishing village in the mountains of Colorado so Daddy could fish before returning to the grind of everyday living. Their
fishing spot that year was most likely between Lake City and Creed Colorado
where they crossed Slumguillion Pass at 11, 361 feet in the San Juan Mountains.
Bryan would have been nearly 7 and Paula would have been nearly 4. Their car
was a new 1952 Chevy. (That was a BIG deal for them.)
