Summer Vacation 1955

 This vacation was taken the year before I was born. Mother and Daddy took Bryan and Paula on a trip to Austin, San Marcos, and San Antonio.

 

Special Vacation Picture

Mother loved one of the pictures from their vacation in 1954 so much that she had Granny (Merphia Ewing Quillin) make an oil painting of the scene. We still have the painting and it is in our lake place at Possum Kingdom. It hung for most of my life in Mother and Daddy's den.

Summer Fun 1954

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.)

Early morning start. Hardly daybreak and sleepy head kids.

Colorado and Yellowstone - 1953

 When we were little, Mother and Daddy loved to vacation in Colorado. In 1953, before I was born, they took Bryan and Paula to Colorado and then ventured on up into Wyoming to see Yellowstone. This was 3 years before I was born. 

Denver Zoo

Bryan and Carolita Quillin - Old Faithful

Paula and Carolita Quillin - Old Faithful

Bryan, Paula and Carolita Quillin

Yellowstone 1953

 Mother and Daddy loved to take us to Colorado each year for a vacation. They loved the mountains and Daddy loved to fish. This year they must have gone from Colorado on up into Wyoming to see Yellowstone. This was Mother making a picnic lunch for everyone. I was not born yet.

Pictured are: Paula Quillin, Bryan Quillin, Carolita Jones Quillin

Holy City of the Wichitas 1956

Family photos below.

                                                https://www.flickr.com/photos/sillysocks/7775529162

Mother and Daddy loved taking family vacations. These photos are labeled in the 1956 folder of the photo album. I was born in late August, so this trip must have been taken in the fall of 1956. It appears in one photo that Mother is holding me, wrapped in a blanket. Bryan would have been about 10 years old, and Paula would have been 6 years old.

 
I was curious as I did not know any information on the location of these photos. And upon researching the internet, I learned much about this place. It is located in Cache, Oklahoma.  I can definitely see this as a place where Mother and Daddy would have wanted to take their children. We also visited Craterville theme park, located not far from the Holy City. The lake pictures were labeled as Lake Kickapoo, but they do not look like the terrain around that lake. My guess would be that this lake is somewhere in the Wichita Mountains. 

Here is a link to the Holy City of the Wichitas. 
Holy City of the Wichitas

It appears to be the ruins of an ancient city, but it was constructed in 1926 as a place to perform the Passion Play. It was very popular in the 1930s. 

CRATERVILLE AMUSEMENT PARK

CLIMBING THE ROCKS