Brighton? Blackpool? Wildwood? Your Favourite Childhood Summer Holiday Spot

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launderess

launderess

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Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage
Was watching a program on television the other night about the old resort town of Wildwood, New Jersey, and it brought back memories of summer vacations at the beach.

Wildwood's heyday was the 1950's and early 1960's it seems, which is about the time of the great "road trip" holiday. Before people hopped jets to Bora Bora, for summer holiday, everyone packed up into the family car and hit the road.
 
I was born in South Dakota, so Rapid City/Mount Rushmore was a regular destination for us. We'd stop at Wall Drug in Wall and see the (cheap) sights there, too.

We didn't have much money when I was growing up, so the 6-hour trip to Mount Rushmore was about as extravagant as it got, LOL.
 
wonders if Chestermike agrees

but for me a day at the beach winter or summer has to be Talacre beach North Wales lol lol lol! However abroad, i was lucky enough to go to Egypt in March where i got to scuba/snorkel in the red sea. Ive seen some amazing fish and coral. Thats my heavenly place at the min. Nick.
 
It varied-

In my early childhood, we went to a very family, not "family" oriented village called Lakeside, OH. Near Sandusky, and basically (then) a unit of the United Methodist Church. Other family members owned properties there then, and let us borrow.

After Dad died, we spent more time near Ma's family, in southwestern Ohio, in the Dayton-Springfield-Urbana region.

Then, we did a lot of museums and art glass factories. Fenton. Rainbow. Degenhart. Viking. Fostoria. I liked the Thomas Edison birthplace in Milan, Ohio the best. (My-lan, not Meelan!)

By the mid 70s unto the early 80s, we finally got it right. A rented cottage in Ontario.

Lake Muskoka, on Georgian Bay.

Our next-door neighbours here in Kent had a place there, and we rented the cottage literally next door. We went out in their powerboat, swam from their dock..... day-tripped in the region......
We had wonderful meals, and on rainy days had marathon Scrabble, Monopoly, and Parcheesi games.

It was slightly and sweetly mind-blowingly trippy to be in Canada on July 4, 1976.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
North Shore, Oahu, Hawaii.

When smaller, any road trip with my parents was great. The Stuckey's, Nickerson Farms, playing car bingo with my sisters (with those bingo card games with car nameplates and the sliding red windows over each to cover the square) and watching the scenery and the weather go by.
 
COVE LAKE, PARIS ARKANSAS

During the time I was about age 5 through 13 we would go Tent camping at Cove Lake. LOVED it there. Always came back with a hellacious sun burn. Two favorite things.....cool mornings waking up to breakfast being cooked on the trusty coleman campstove and sitting around the campfire at night making smores and laughing and laughing. There was a large wooden dock there, you could swim out to it and lay around and sunbathe, I jumped off once into a ducky innertube. Legs got caught and duck flipped upside down. I fought and fought to get turned over. I finally did. was panicking bad. I just floated in the water for awhile and got my composure. I knew better than to let my mom know I was scared or flustered. OF course the rule was I could not go out to the dock. LOL <p> Teenage years we would rent a travel trailer and go on long vacations....After two trips renting, mom and dad decided to buy one and tent camping was no more. Looking back on that, I dont know how dad did all that putting up the tent, table cover etc. LOL and this was a relaxing weekend for him ? We helped, but you know he had the brunt of it. Cripple Creek colorado was cool, Florida, Bowling Green Kentucky, Washington DC, New Orleans.
 
Since my father was a pilot as well we got to go to a lot of different places. But we only flew every other year. On opposing years we would drive, so we could "see the country" as my mother would put it. I always told her I prefer the look of the country from 36,000 feet, but I digress.
Sometimes we'd rent a cabin in Lake Geneva, WI for a week or another year we took a long trip when I was 16 (1967). It was Chicago-Los Angeles via Route 66 down to San Diego and up the west coast to Seattle and across thru the Big National Parks and back to Chicago. That trip took 3-1/2 weeks. Funny thing was after that trip my parents announced that we would never be taking a trip that long ever again! Being cooped up with YOUR family for that long can cause brain damage! I think by the time we got to San Francisco we were all ready to kill each other. What I remember most about that trip was the miles and miles and hours and hours of nothing until you got to the next city.
But my parents said the trip that really got them was the drive from Denver to Ft. Lauderdale in 1957. No Interstate highways, all two laners the entire way. I think it took 4 days in each direction. All I remember about that trip was asking them "When are we going to get there?" every five minutes!
 
My folks were big time for camping/trailering when we were young in the late 50's 60's and each year it would be a different area/region. We did Northern Ontario, Quebec, New England, down the eastern seaboard, Kentucky/Tenn etc. Nice thing too is dad took lots of 8mm film and we had it DVD'd a couple of years ago so can relive the fun. What I never figure now is why on earth he never bought a station wagon for us 3 kids and the dog who always came along as well. We never did the same thing twice for vacation. Mom took me and my sis to England in 67 to visit the relatives and we went to Blackpool while visiting my great auntin Manchester, and then we when to Whitley Bay with my aunt up in Newcastle.
 
My Dad was from Maine and since he was in the army at the time he would get a month off for vacation so we would spend the time between Springfield MA, where my grandparents lived and Oakland, Waterville and North Berwick ME visiting relatives, and then weekends during the summer we would spend the time in the Pconos in Tannersville where my mom's parents had a cabin. one summer my brother and I spent the whole summer in Oakland ME with our aunt & uncle. Wish I could relive that summer, we had a big lake for swimmimg right at the end of the street.
 
Long road trips with the children give parent(s) the chance to utter the famous line: "Don't make me have to stop this car and come back there"! To which we children would grin and say (under our breaths or even safer in our minds), "Yes, come on back here! Your so big and bad, stop the car in the middle of the motorway! You haven't been back here in a long time, come on back,"! *LOL*
 

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