It's been 43 years since I ate my first lobster. That's me on the far left, next to Grandma Tomlonson. My mom and brother are across the table from us. My dad took the picture.That was my first and most recent trip to Maine. We took a lot of camping vacations when I was growing up. My parents wanted to travel around the country and see as much of it as possible before my brother turned 16. So in 1967 we traveled to New England, in 1968 we went to the Southwest, and in 1969 we went to the Northwest.
I have great memories of those trips - always a new place to sleep, new things to see, new foods to try. I swam in both oceans, fell in love with rocky sea shores, discovered the rain forest on the Olympic Peninsula, attended the rangers' fireside talks at the National Parks. I learned to love the Kansas prairie at dusk, the Rocky Mountains at sunrise, and the wondrous cold of a mountain stream on bare feet.
I remember looking out from our campsite in Rapid City, South Dakota one night and seeing the lights of Wall, SD 60 miles east. I remember the sandy feeling of the warm wood of a boardwalk along the Jersey shore on a July afternoon. I remember the view from the rest st
op near Banff, Alberta, as we ate a picnic lunch on my 12th birthday.Years later my dad added up the total costs of those trips - buying the camper, gas, campground fees, etc., and found that we could have made the same trips staying in motels for the same money.
Sorry Dad, you're wrong. They wouldn't have been the same trips.......
