Road trip, 1995

At around 5:00 one June morning in 1995, before the sun had come up, my family loaded into our blue Subaru Legacy to head on our vacation to the East, most notably to my great-grandma's house in small Pulaski, New York. I was six years old at the time, and this is the first major vacation that I can remember. My dad was driving and my mom was in the passenger seat; I sat in the middle in the back with my brother David on the left and my sister Susanne (Nan) on the right. I think I discovered that I had left my Etch-a-Sketch keychain in the car, so I was able to play with it during vacation. On our first day of driving, at one point Nan asked if she could crack the window, meaning open it a little. I had never heard crack used that way before. I think she put up my blue silky blanket in the window to block the sun. At one point I scraped some earwax out of my ear and asked if anyone wanted my earwax. My siblings were grossed out and my mom told me it was gross, but I didn't understand why.

We listened to our mix tapes that we had made. Mine consisted largely of The Secret Garden and Simon and Garfunkel. I was disappointed that the Peter Pan song my sister and mom had convinced me to add to my tape was not a Disney version and was in fact some lady (Mary Martin) who pretended to be Peter Pan even though she sounded nothing like a boy. I had told my mom my CD could be called "Mix" but she told me we would have to call it "Mark's Mix"; I was later surprised to see that Nan had had the same idea and called hers "Susanne's Mix."

We stopped at several rest stops for meals. At one place where we stopped there were several mishaps, including dropping the ketchup bottle and having it explode. I kept pointing out that I got mustard on my shirt as another contributing mishap. We all laughed when the sprinklers came on.

Our first major stop on the trip was in Nauvoo, IL. It was very rainy the whole time we were there, which kept the crowds small. I remember seeing the rainwater what seemed like an inch deep on the pavement. At one point we had to pull over near a gas station because it was raining so hard. I remember my brother fitting the pink fold-up umbrella in his pocket. We stayed at a motel in Nauvoo that had a small office. I was intrigued by the tiny office and thought it would be fun to have one in the front yard, kind of like a playhouse. I said to my dad, "Can you make me an office?" My parents shared one bed, my brother and I shared another, and my sister slept on a cot. We went to the vacant Nauvoo Temple lot, where they had some of the sun stones on display. I understood what sun stones and moon stones were, but I got a little confused with talk of sandstone and limestone. I remember one place where they gave us gingerbread cookies. We went to the blacksmith, where they made a little horseshoe and asked who there had the closest birthday. It was my mom, so she got to keep the horseshoe. They gave us rings made out of nails. We got a Nauvoo brick at another place. We stopped at a printer's shop, where my brother got to wear a printing hat and sit at the press, but I only remember this because of the picture in the scrapbook. We watched a play in the evening put on by the senior missionaries in a building with marble columns. I remember it being really funny, although I don't know if I laughed because I got it or if I laughed because everyone else was. We got some sugar crystal candy at a shop. The candy was on a wooden stick with a sphere at the bottom, which I later used in pretending because it looked like a cartoon thermometer. On our way out of Nauvoo early one morning, we drove by Liberty Jail and my mom told me Joseph Smith was in jail there, but I didn't know why it was significant (and in fact it took me a while to realize Liberty Jail and Carthage Jail were different things).

At some point during the trip I became familiar with the idea of a ghost town, so every time I saw an abandoned building, I figured it was a ghost town, or at least a ghost building. As we were driving down the road, I saw a Shell sign, but I didn't see any gas station, so I figured it must be a ghost gas station. Somewhere around there, we stopped at a park to eat lunch, and one of the tables had a butterfly chrysalis on it.

Our next major stop was in Washington, D.C. We stayed in a cabin-like motel that had a little playground. I remember being fascinated by the fireflies. My mom had some caffeinated ruby red grapefruit drink in our motel cabin.We saw the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall and the Lincoln Memorial, where I was wearing my Looney Tunes shirt (I only remember what I was wearing because of the scrapbook). We went to the Smithsonian, where I remember wondering why the Star Spangled Banner had splotches on it (only the cover did, not the flag), and I was excited to see a Nauvoo Temple sun stone. My mom and sister went to an exhibit of First Ladies' dresses, while I went with my dad and my brother to a war exhibit. My souvenir from the Smithsonian was a kaleidoscope, only it wasn't a kaleidoscope where you turn the front and little plastic beads fall around; it was a kaleidoscope where you turned the whole thing and it would refract images that entered the front. I remember sitting on a bench in the museum or a mall and looking at people through it. Their walking made the kaleidoscope work; I didn't even need to turn it. Later in the trip I remember my grandpa was trying to make it work by twisting the front; we had to tell him he had to turn the whole thing.

I remember attending a service for the tomb of the unknown soldier. My dad had me on his shoulders so I could see, but I didn't know what was going on. I decided to be silly and put my hands over my dad's eyes and laughed deviously, but my mom and sister shushed me and I felt guilty. We also visited Arlington and Gettysburg on that trip, but I don't really remember those places.

Then we made it to Pulaski, NY, where Grandma King lived. As we got to the lane where she lived, we were surprised to see the street sign proclaim it as Ebbert Rd. It was called that because Grandma King had lived there longer than anyone else, but it was my grandparents, the Ebberts, who officially owned the place, so that Grandma King could have an apartment in town. I had been there as a baby and I had seen illustrations of the place, but this was the first time I remembered seeing it for myself--the red K on the outside of the chimney, the marshy places at the edge of the pond, the dock leading out into the water. I can't remember if my grandparents were already there, but I know we were the first of all other families to arrive (since we were having a family reunion). I was endeared by Grandma King's white facial hair. I liked the horseshoe on the shed.

That first night in Pulaski we went to visit my Great Aunt Mary Lou. Before we got out of the car, My mom and sister (now that I think about it, I think my sister tried to be a second mother to me on this trip) told me that I couldn't say anything when we went inside. When we went inside, I found out that it was because my mom's cousin married a dwarf, Sandy, and they didn't want me to say anything. Sandy was in the kitchen cooking.

Over the course of several days, other families arrived. My uncle Paul and his family arrived in their Pathfinder; I think his lady friend of the time also came with her kids. Paul told us of how a bear followed them, and they still had the bear's paw and/or claw prints on the spare tire case. My cousin Tammy had been the first to notice and she told the story of how she alerted everyone to the bear. Her eyes were really big and she just pointed to the back. I asked her why she didn't just say out loud that a bear was following them. She said it was because she was silly like that. (Or something like that.) The Thompsons and the Gildersleeves also arrived. I was able to meet distant relatives that I didn't know, such as the Morrows (my mom's cousin's families) and one Uncle Jack who smoked a pipe, which I thought was kind of cool.

Since the house at "The Pond" was quite small, lots of tents were put up to accommodate everyone. I actually only ended up sleeping in a tent one night. I remember having lots of fun experiences with my cousins and relatives. I remember a few incidents with my then-uncle Wayne: Once he went into the little grove-y area near the house and picked some wild strawberries; once he made me and my cousin Chancey go in the bathroom together; once I was mad at him for something and I told him, "I hope you know I'm a vampire, Uncle Wayne!" (The reason for this vampire identity was because when I had broken my arm the previous October, I got some Halloween stickers that I put on the blue blanket that I took on this particular trip. I liked to pretend the blanket was like a vampire cape. I can't remember if the Halloween stickers were still on the blanket at this point or not, but I still did like to pretend to be a vampire with it.) Once I was playing with a red-and-white-striped, fringed piece of cloth that was tied to a blue-and-white-striped piece of cloth; I was playing some "give me the password and I'll let you pass" game. Grandma King played along. This might have been connected to the Wayne-vampire incident. I liked holidays then as much as I do now, but then I didn't really care about them being in season; thus I was playing some game with my cousin Joey with the shamrocks in the yard. I only found three-leaf-shamrocks, but I talked a lot in the game about four-leaf ones. At one point I thought Joey had found a six-leaf one, but he pointed out that it was just three; I had mistaken the two bumps on the heart-shaped leaves as individual leaves. I remember riding on a boat with Nan, Tammy, and my mom; I was humming something and Tammy asked me what I was humming. I told her I was just making it up, which was true, but I think parts of it were from The Pagemaster. We were having a discussion about the depth of the pond. It was said that my cousins Shane and Todd would be able to stand on the bottom of it. Tammy jokingly said that where we currently were on the water, she would be able to stand (it was estimated the depth was ten feet). I remember sitting on the dock and my cousin April was fishing. I was humming and she told me to be quiet. I pointed out that the house down the way (a house that owned a slide on a dock in the pond) was loudly playing music; she told me that that was over there, not where we were. She said she didn't like fish. I asked her why she was fishing; she said she liked catching fish, just not eating them. Once Chancey was eating a fish but it still had the scales on, which didn't look at all appetizing to me. I met my second cousin Kyle, who was born on Christmas. I found him a bit mean. At one point he took a wet net and shook it over my head while singing "Jingle Bells." We bought some water wings ("floaties") for the water, but they were a darker shade of orange than I was used to. I remember a discussion about how my cousins Peter and Shane would both be "four" at the same time (since Shane was a Leap Day baby).

On the Fourth of July was our official family reunion. I took this paragraph from my Fourth of July memory post:
We were at a family reunion in upstate New York. (On this day we were at the house of one of my mom's cousins, the one married to Sandy. Their house wasn't finished and had a really cool ledge). My mom had bought these huge greenish-gray shirts for us all to wear so we would match. I was wearing shorts with vertical red, white and blue stripes with some hints of green. My cousin Joey and I were talking with our older cousin Tammy and pretending to be the Statue of Liberty, putting our hands up, holding imaginary torches. At one point I said, "I'm the Statue of Freedom," and just stood doing nothing (no hand in the air), and she corrected me with "Liberty." Then I was able to educate her about the Statue of Freedom I had seen elsewhere on my trip, which was a woman with an eagle on her head. I remember watching my brother and older cousins and second cousins playing a game of basketball.

One day we went up to Niagara Falls. We were able to go behind the Falls and wore yellow plastic jackets. There was a sign that said "Trip Hazard." I don't know if I knew the difference between tripping and slipping, so I thought it was referring to the wet ground. (I might have actually associated the word "trip" with vacation.) I also pronounced "hazard" as "huh-zard." We went to a gift shop where my mom bought a set of salt and pepper shakers that were a toaster and a piece of toast; my sister also got a set of salt and pepper shakers that were bottles of Clearly Canadian. I was excited to be in a different country, so I got a little Canadian flag. My parents and the Thompsons bought bottles of real maple syrup; Joey got his own little bottle, and I was a bit jealous. I wanted some Canadian money, so we went into a store called Christmas Magic that had Christmas decorations so we could exchange some money. The Santa decorations in the store were a little different from my traditional view of Santa, so I wondered if that was the Canadian version of Santa. I got a two-dollar bill, a one-dollar coin, a quarter, a dime, a nickel, and several pennies.

One day we went to Palmyra. We went to the Sacred Grove, and I remember my mom pointing to a patch of sunlight coming through the trees; she told me the First Vision might have been as bright as that. I was wearing my blue and green turtle outfit, but I only remember that because of pictures. After the Sacred Grove we ate sandwiches. Joey said he wanted mustard on his, and the rest of us thought mustard was gross, although I think David might have said mustard is good but mayo is gross. Then we went to the Hill Cumorah (which Joey called the Hill Cuhmormon, but I personally don't remember that). At the top of the hill, we Melville and Thompson kids arranged ourselves at the monument for a picture. David and Susanne sat in front, and all us littler kids gathered around. I wanted to be tallest in the picture, so I was standing on a ledge near the bottom of the monument. The adults kept telling us not to climb the monument, but I wasn't climbing it, I just wanted to be higher than everyone.

One day we went to a cemetery to see Grandpa King's grave. I remember being fascinated by a nearby tombstone for a little girl with the girl's picture on it. There was a Halloween decoration at that grave, and I asked my mom if we could take it. She of course said no, and I'm embarrassed now that I even asked. Several wasps (or other stinging insects) entered the car and got stuck in the rear window, where they died and their corpses paled for years.

Eventually the time came for us to leave Pulaski. Before we left, we were at a grocery store where we bought Alpha-Bits cereal and Goober peanut butter/jelly, which I had never seen before. Susanne didn't come back with us; she went to NYC with my grandparents and the Thompsons, where my grandpa bought sandwiches for everyone from a bar.

The four of us Melvilles made our way back west. Once we stayed in a hotel where we ate Spaghettios straight from the can; it was then that I discovered they taste better cold. I think the noodles were shaped like Garfield characters, although it might have been Where's Waldo. Somewhere we also stopped at McDonald's (or somewhere like that), where the toy in my kids meal was a male character from Pocahontas, I think her dad.

We went to a place called Reptile Gardens, where the first thing we did was look at 100-year-old tortoises, which I touched. There were lots of other reptiles, too. We went to Mt. Rushmore, where I think we stayed the night. We were looking at gift shops and one had little models of Mt. Rushmore. There were big gray ones, which my mom and I didn't like. They had white ones that we liked. There was one little one and several bigger ones. My mom wanted me to get a bigger one, but I wanted the little one. I remember my mom asking stores about Black Hills gold. The next morning we saw Mt. Rushmore and tried to see Crazy Horse, although I can't remember if we actually saw it or not. On the drive home, David asked me if he could have one Canadian penny. I didn't want to give him one, but my mom made me, since I had several pennies and lots of other coins, and he was just asking for one.

And then we came home!