“How will we know when we get there?” I asked from the back seat.
“What do you mean?” my Mom replied.
“I mean, will it be different?”
She laughed. “You mean, will it look different?”
“Yeah.”
“No. It will look much like home.”
“Oh. OK,” I said, more than slightly disappointed. I sat back and continued reading from my stack of comic books. It was a hot summer day and all of the windows were rolled down. A warm breeze blew through the car. For my family, this was air-conditioning in 1979.
I started imagining what it would be like when we got to the Promised Land. Suddenly, Dad pointed to a sign along the highway. “Say goodbye to Massachusetts,” he said as the station wagon roared over the border into New Hampshire.
“We’re in New Hampshire,” I yelled. Mark and Barbara cheered from the back-back seat. I stuck my head out of the window and took in the sights. Mark and Barbara crawled all around the back-back, looking out the different windows. None of us wore seat belts.
“Do you smell the air? Doesn’t it smell different?” I asked, in an exaggerated tone.
Mom started laughing.
“So clean, so fresh. Wow. That sign said ‘Bienvenu’ — I wonder if they even speak English here. What if it’s all French? We’re screwed!”
Even Dad chuckled at that.
“How long is it until we get to the hotel?”
“Maybe another hour, Andy,” Mom replied. “Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
I sat back, but I barely noticed the ride. I was too busy thinking about our upcoming overnight stay at a Holiday Inn in Portsmouth before we went to Aunt Barbara’s summer cottage on Lake Winnipesaukee. Until this time, we had NEVER stayed overnight outside the state of Massachusetts. In fact, this trip was an exercise in Peterson family planning.
Dad had put a large glass container on the floor in my parent’s bedroom. This was our vacation fund. For the last six months or so we put all of our spare change into this barrel to help defray the costs of our first family vacation out of state. I remember adding all sorts of change into this bucket from the money I got from Paul the Barber to run his errands to leftover lawn mowing money from Grandma King (minus comic book expenses, of course). And Mark filled the jar with their hard-earned money, too. It was so satisfying to hear the <clink clink> of coins as they rattled into the giant jar.
We ultimately saved $68.00 in the vacation jar — an impressive amount for us. This all went towards our expenses. Plans were put in place. Dad took a week off. We loaded up the Country Squire and off we went to points north. I was 13 years old and the idea of staying overnight in another state was HUGE to me. I had never been away from home and I never wanted to be. I was truly too provincial.
This may be due in part to the fact that my parents neither had the time nor the inclination (and certainly not the money) to travel. When they did talk of traveling they had set their sights on Florida — long after we three kids were out of the house and on our own. I got the idea that this was part of their retirement plans. I think going to Florida was the travel plan for everyone in their generation. In any event, we did not travel. When talk of travel did arise it was always to be done in the far-flung future. While I think Mom may have mentioned going to Ireland once or twice, that was just kooky talk to me. Only rich people went to Europe. We were not rich. Again, I was excited to be in New Hampshire.
I didn’t travel outside the United States until a weekend trip to Montreal in November 1984. Since then I have been to various points in the continental US and even been to a few countries in Europe with many more trips still to be taken. Today, I am remembering when saving $68.00 and piling into a station wagon with my family was the trip of a lifetime.
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