These were given to me

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Nice jugs you got there. I remember using these on vacation trips, picnics, etc. as a kid. My grandmother had a couple of them in two sizes, one for water and one for Kool-Aid or iced tea. No bottled water, no soda - and no ice. Outings and events for school, church, etc. always included a giant orange cooler-jug and waxed-paper cups.

My sister and I were musing the other day at how we never got to "eat out" at restaurants when traveling, there was always a picnic meal, ate at a rest stop or park along the way. Almost nothing was thrown away but a few paper napkins, the rest was packed up, washed and used again on the journey home.
 
I remember those from my childhood

When we traveled with daddy, we had a Coleman ice chest and a two burner electric hotplate. Lunch was almost always eaten at a rest stop with sandwiches. The ice chest usually rode in the foot well behind the front seat. As soon as we checked in to a motel in the afternoon, daddy and I carried it in to the bathroom where mom had placed the vanity chair against the bathtub. The little tap on the end was opened and it got to pee in the tub. As soon as the bags were inside, my brother and I would start making runs to the ice machine to replenish the ice in the chest. If we waited until people started arriving for the night, there would not be enough ice to refill the chest. The ice machine was often one of those brown Frigidaire ice machines that made the wet square cubes and had the big tilt out bin. At one Holiday Inn, a man was sitting beside the pool with obviously not his first drink. Even though it was getting close to 5, the tiki light had been turned on early. He watched us run back and forth with our ice bucket and finally growled, "Whatcha got in you room, a damn penguin?" I said, "No, just an ice chest."
 
My parents have a green and white Thermos brand gallon jug with the matching chest cooler which they received as a wedding gift in 1967.  My dad used it when he was working on road projects in the summer.  He used to take it full of iced sweet tea.
 
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