MEMORY MONDAY

 

My mother has written her memoirs and has been after me to write mine. I have been resisting for a while however I am creating Memory Monday to help me along. Come join me with your own memories. Each week will be a different prompt to encourage the writing of your memories. Link your memories and share them with everyone.

Our prompt is: A Vacation Memory

My very first vacation memory goes back to when I was about 7 years old. Our parents packed my sister and brother and I into a 1956 station wagon and headed out West to visit my father’s family. He had not seen some of his siblings in more than 25 years. It takes about 36 hours to get from Toronto to Winnipeg or at least it did back then. Mom and Dad took turns driving and we slept in the back on a crib mattress. My brother slept in front between my parents.

When we arrived in Winnipeg we stayed with my Dad’s oldest sister and her family. She had one son still living at home. We also got to see all of the other relatives who lived close by. Our next adventure took us through unchartered roads as we went up to Northern Manitoba and followed a caterpillar as the road was still being built.

My Dad was stopped by a policeman because he thought my Dad was two timing his best friend. It turns out that he is the only brother who looks most like him. Once we got everything straightened out we headed to my uncle’s home in Flin Flon, Manitoba. Here again there were lots of aunts, uncles and cousins to meet. I also watched my first game of Cribbage here.

Next stop was in Saskatchewan which was my father’s birth place. He showed us the farm where he grew up and met many neighbours who told us stories of his wild childhood. Of course Dad had relatives in other parts of the province as well.

Lastly we travelled into Alberta where I journey stopped in Banff. Dad still had one brother who lived in Vancouver however my sister was ill and it would take us too long to cross the mountains so we headed home.

This would be our last vacation as a family because we got a cottage and spent our summers there instead. I would not make another visit out west until I was married.

Next Week’s Prompt: More Vacation Memories

My daughter made us a Memory Monday button that you can grab from my sidebar if you want.

Please link up your posts to this continuing linky so we can watch each other’s memoirs develop over this year.  Please use the format of “PROMPT – BLOG NAME” so we can follow each week’s writing.