POZ Community Forums
Off Topic Forums => Off Topic Forum => Topic started by: OzPaul on September 16, 2006, 12:50:49 am
-
Hi everyone
I thought it would be fun to find out from our global family where we had favorite childhood vacation places ? I'd love to hear from our friends/family from around the globe.
My favorite would have to be Yosemite National Park in California. From the time I was five years old we would take an annual summer holiday there and stay in the valley and usually stay in the tent cabins. Favorite memories would include inner tubing in the Merced River as well as hiking up to the various waterfalls, Neveda, Vernal and Yosemite. Also watching the 'firefall' after sunset. Something they stopped in the mid sixties.
So, come on everybody, who's next ?
Paul
-
My favourite childhood holiday spot was a little place in England called "Blackpool" I was 7 when I first went there, my brother and I would walk down the promenade with a candy floss in one hand and a toffee apple in the other..wearing hats with "kiss me quick" on them, played in the show grounds on the Big dipper, the waltzers and spent our pocket money in the penny arcades and rides on the Donkeys along the beach.
Every shop was a kids idea of heaven, full of fun toys, souvenirs and blackpool rock..and at night we would walk for miles to see all the "Blackpool illuminations" the whole promenade would be lite up with lights that turned the night back into day..and the pantomimes and shows that were on every night down on the Blackpool pier were just the best.
I went back there last August, and it hasn't changed a bit, the shops are still the same and I remember thinking, "my god this place is so tacky" but as I watched the kids walking around they were just as excited about being there as I was 51 years ago.
Hugs
Jan :-*
-
.
-
My favourite holiday spot as a kid would have to be Lake Catthie, at the time a tiny little town about a 6 hour drive up the coast from Sydney.
We used to have a great time up there fishing, swimming, prawning and bingo at night time. I'll tell you though we were one daggy family back in the 70's - think Valiant station wagons, boob tubes, coca cola pants, zinc cream and blistered sunburnt skin (for you americans, think national lampoons vacation).
-
:D :D..Carousel...even the rain didn't spoilt my holidays there as a kid...I had forgotten about the fish and chips suppers we had, and they were always wrapped up in old news papers... :D.. but as you said..NEVER AGAIN...I think as kids we looked at everything through rose colored glasses...but they are good memories.
Hugs
Jan :-*
-
Ahhh, the lazy, hazy, carefree days of summer vacation. Wedged in the backseat of my father's Oldsmobile F-85 with my sisters. Driving across the Mojave Desert with no air conditioning in the middle of summer. My mother shrieking at us to "shut up, we will get there when we get there." My little sister's head in a make-shift barf bag due to unrelenting car sickness. Those were the days...sounds like an AM gathering.
p.s. After convincing my father to stop at Chief Yellowhorse Trading Post and buy me the bullwhip I am holding...I swore I would not hit my sister with it. I will let you guess what happened right after that pic was taken.
[attachment deleted by admin]
-
I loved visiting my great uncle's farm in southern Illinois (an area called Little Egypt, for those who know the area).
I milked goats, was chased by a old sow (a real one), explored the creaky, spooky old barn, picked wild blackberries, dug up sassafras roots to make tea, made homemade "chewing gum" from wheat kernels and was awed by the farm house, a two-story monstrosity with funny door knobs that I would now have to pay a mint to own.
I also loved going fishing with my dad. I was never good at it, but I enjoyed it.
HUGS,
Mark
-
Canon Beach on the Oregon Coast, Timothy Lake in the Mt. Hood National Forest, Wallowa Lake in Eastern Oregon, Crater Lake, Yellowstone National Park, The Grand Canyon...all were wonderful vacations.
We did a lot of camping in the mountains, which I loved, and a lot of renting houses on the Oregon Coast for a week or two.
-
Holidays for me as a small person were funny things, we moved around so much, everywhere sort of fell into that category.
Top 3 would be
The beach at Mombasa, my mother in her sari-phase, just on the up after a very big down, white hot sand & jelly fish in the water, background clink of ice cubes in glasses as I fell asleep.
Being dumped for 4 weeks, aged 8, with family friends, plantation owners, near plettenberg bay, SA. Sunlight, the southern hemisphere variety, air heavy with eucalyptus & pine oil,tackies off, feet bare, & I think I spent about 24hours inside the whole time.
Vermont in autumn, aged 10, riots of leaf colour, almost-winter air catching in my throat. My mother, (not in sari- phase) teetering on the edge of manic, making hot chocolate n toasted marshmallows at 2am in the morning, and me wondering, sleepily, why I could never figure out how to hold her in those moments between light and dark..?
good post, paul.
Kate
-
We went to California every summer with our parents and the highlight of our trip was stopping at the Jack Rabbit trading post. They had little black rabbit signs up every so often that would tell you how far the Jack Rabbit trading post was. We would always see who was the first one to spot one.
My brother got a bullwhip also....and guess who was the first one he hit with it....LOL
Then we would go to Arkansas with our granparents and that was the most fun. Running around all the hills and swimming in swimming holes.
-
Hmmmmm...probably Key West, FL. I had some really good times there with my mom and dad as a kid.
Brian
-
We used to pile in the car and go to Seaside Heights, New Jersey. I was great for kids - beach and ocean, the boardwalk. We would spend hundreds of quarters on the games to win giant stuffed animals, make spin art, and eat junk. I still like boardwalks and miniature golf. The minature golf place was on top of the boardwalk buildings with a view of all the action. I had a fancy for winning these huge stuffed animals with my brother. They'd take up the whole back of the station wagon. I still need to see the ocean yearly, and the occasional boardwalk visit, howver tacky, is always lots of fun.
-
For us it was kind of all over the place. My parents had a big old Plymouth wagon with green paint and fake wood sides. They also went out and bought a travel trailer to drag along behind it. One year we spent the entire summerdriving across the country and back , stopping at every tourist trap along the way. The Tetons, Grand Canyon, Four Corners, Yellowstone, Glacier. You name the place, we probably were there that year. On those few time we got bored, me and my brother would take the dog, and "accidentally" drop him on our Aunt, who spent most of the trip napping in the back seat. It was a long trip, and how my folks maintained their sanity between the kids, dog, traffic, driving, and everything else that goes along, I'll never know. Maybe they had some really good drugs. I know I'd need 'em.
-
My favorite vacation as a child was definitely Key West, Fl.! Even though I was born & raised here in Florida 8)
It's beautiful there.
To this day, the Keys are one of my favorite destinations!!! ;D
Peace
Kelly
-
We would leave town( North Tonawanda, NY) and drive south on routh 16, and head toward Olean ,NY, which is close to the PA line.
My Uncle had a cabin down there. About 10 miles north of Olean in Hinsdale ,NY ( actually quite a large place) and this is where we would hold the family reunions. They were always a special time, plenty of woods and forest and streams,( fossil hunting ) to get lost in. One time my younger brother and myself did just that. We were rescued though !!! I wasn't so fearful; of being lost, as I was fearful of the beating we were going to get , when they took us back to the cabin. But, My wonderful aunt Mary, convinced her brother ( my father) not to hit us ;)
Ray
-
Thank everyone !!!
It's great to hear so many vacation stories from our childhoods !!
My brothers and I took many family vacation while young, we were fortunate for sure. Other places we went and had fun, generally, were Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion National Parks too.
A favorite of our family for several years was Ensenada when it was still a sleepy fishing town with low key tourism. I still remember fondly these trips and am thankful to my folks for having a sense of suburban adventure.
My brothers and I were raised in Southern Calif. My folks left England after WW2 and always wanted to see the western USA and Mexico and boy did we.
Paul
-
The 1984 World's Fair held in New Orleans. No one was there (probably contributed to the fact that the Fair went bankrupt during the Fair). There were no lines for the rides and they often made us ride the rides twice since no one else was at the Fair. It was a blast for me and my sister. My parents on the other hand, hated it, since they were forced to ride the rides over and over and over again. yeehaw!
-
My favorite place was Wildwood, NJ. We stayed at the same hotel every year. We would rent bikes and ride on the boardwalk in the morning. At night we would walk on the boardwalk with all the yummy smells, and fun rides.
The hotel had a swimming pool with a huge island in the middle, and my brother and I would swim race to the island. They also had a playground with sand on the floor which always amazed me.
A few years ago, my husband and I went back to the same hotel. The outside is still the same, but the inside changed a little. And the pool with the big island in the middle looked much smaller than when I was little. I actually jumped from the pool edge to the little island. I just seemed so far away when I was little.
I have a picture of me and my mom sitting on the beach with the hotel behind us in 1967. My husband and I took the same picture in 2000. It still pretty much looks the same.
It was fun. Times when you could just have fun, and did not have to worry about life.
Christine
-
Any Loew's movie palace, especially when they showed old movies on Mondays and Tuesdays. Just sayin'.....
-
.