One of the highlights of my youth was vacationing in Montana. We would drive from Kansas City to Butte on the U. S.highways, a slow drive at best. Mom and Dad would alternate drving and we wouldn’t stop overnight. They had to be exhausted by the time we reached Butte!
The first vacation I can document was in 1949.I have a picture of us at the entrance to Teton National Forest in Yellowstone. Mom and Dad posed with me, Larry and Ruth.
That Summer we went in July and were there for Fourth of July. I remember seeing parade floats lined up to start, Dad’s dog Ches chasing (and, sadly, catching) a lit firecracker Uncle Bill had thrown. Miraculously, Ches wasn’t hurt.
It was also my first airplane ride. Uncle Bill was part owner of a Piper Super Cub and he took me and Mom for a ride. I don’t think Mom liked it but I never forgot it. We went many times (but not every year). While we were there we got to play with Mark Johns (Dad’s sister Nan’s son) and Bill and Gerry’s children. In those innocent days they let us go out (we stayed at the Orphan Girl mine where Grandpa was a caretaker) into the surrounding country and stay all day. It was an idyllic part of childhood that lasted a decade.
There will be more Butte memories to come.