Summer 1954 Roadtrip

 “The freedom of the open road is seductive, serendipitous and absolutely liberating.” 
― Aaron Lauritsen, 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip

malahat drive, 1950's

 1954 ( I think....the year is a bit hazy, but close enough) my parents took a Road Trip. I was not even around  yet for quite a few years. They had  a "new" car, complete with seats and doors, ready for the trip. They took my grandparents along. "Trip of a lifetime", my parents told them.

 Leaving Victoria, B.C., they toddled over to the mainland.  Stopped to view Mt. Rundle. We saw Mt. Rundle in 2012,and I always wondered if we stood in the same place.)

 They drove over the Rocky Mtn Range  through Alberta all the way to the farm in Bethune. I love the farm. It  makes me feel so connected.

 Bethune. The old homestead. Now, in the 1950's, run by my mother's brother, Bill. Uncle Bill, who was  honest and shy.  I wondered what my grandparents  said when they came upon the farm they tilled with oxen; the same  place they raise four children.

 Would they have felt nostalagic at all? Would they have wanted to go back? 

 “Real traveling is not about visiting places but 're-visiting' our inner-self.”   ― Sorrab Singha

 The road trip continued. Down into California, their real destination.  They'd never been before. Through the salt water flats at Death Valley. 

 And the Mine ruins. Dust and sand and heat. Onwards to San Juan Capistrano.

 My mother always wanted to visit  there. She wanted to walk the Mission walkway. See the pigeons and the doves. See the ocean, the sand, walk the stone path.

 And she did. She talked about it years later.  How the doves and pigeons  would sit on her shoulder. On her brand new travelling coat. Dressed to the nines. On a road trip. That was my mother. Always looking glamorous.

 And my father. Not very well that last decade of his life. But well enough to take my mother and her parents,  to see San Juan Capistrano. Dressed to the nines of course. In his best suit, I learned later.My mother insisted that he look sharp.

 Dressed to the nines of course. In his best suit, I learned later.My mother insisted that he  wear a tie. He didn't want to. She said it was scandalous not to. He wore a tie.

 “And I felt, in the silence that followed, everything that had happened on the trip to bring me to this place.” ― Morgan Matson,

 On the same trip, they went to Santa Monica. Sat on the beach and had a picnic. Mum wielding the camera. Capturing her mother, now blind,  my dad, and my grandfather.  

 My grandmother  could only hear and touch. They sidetracked to Yosemite, just to drive thru on their way home.  I hope they yodelled from the top of the lookout. Grandmother Isabella Glen Shiels  had a jar of sand she brought back in the car. Sand she collected from the beaches they stopped at. I'm not sure if she put the sand in the jar.

yosemite

  She made it to California and back. And that jar of sand made it home in one piece.  I heard she liked to run her fingers through the sand, often. She died in 1957. My parents never did a long trip like that  again.  "Trip of a lifetime", my mother would tell me, later.  Many years later, when my mother died, in 1988, I was going thru her dresser drawers, and  found that little syrup jar , with just a tiny bit of sand left inside.... 

Vintage photographs 2017 from 1950's file