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shalannaOur household really needs a vacation. I'm so desperate to go somewhere, ANYWHERE BUT HERE IN THIS HOUSE THAT NEEDS NEW FLOORING AND A LOT OF FIXING UP, that I'm going to make my mother get dressed tomorrow morning and go visit her sister about 80 miles north of here. She doesn't even want to go (but she NEEDS to.) Ha!
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kitarra (whose LJ I found while reading kielle's journal after it was too late for me to meet *her* in this life, alas) writes: "Whenever I travel, I collect two things from my destination: a cookbook and a book of folklore."
Cool.
I used to get those "Day Trips In and Around [area]" books and a map, but that became too expensive. I came home from California twice in the 1980s (Palo Alto/Stanford area, San Francisco Bay area, Monterey peninsula/Pacific Grove/Carmel area, L. A.) carrying stacks of books about the best beaches, the best hiking, Yosemite, etc., and so far we haven't gone back.
I always INTEND to get a cookbook from the area and some other thing that we'll use. I usually end up with a refrigerator magnet and a pair of earrings. Shut up.
*shamefaced look*
As a child, I always wanted the cheeeesiest souvenirs. A plate painted with some attraction or other, a doll dressed up like the holiday that the area hosts (such as Oktoberfest, Native American gatherings, etc.), a View-Master 3D disc of photos from the site, postcards, a T-shirt ("My parents went to Red River and all I got was this lousy T-shirt"), etc. I wanted my parents to scatter stolen ashtrays (which they had anyway--yuck!!!) from various Holiday Inns and ashtrays from various attractions around the house. My mother did once steal a bathmat, accidentally. She had my bathing suit wrapped in it and stuck that into a plastic bag and then we brought the bag home. Suit soured. Nasty.
And stuff from Stuckey's! Are there still any Stuckey's truck stops on your routes? The one that was near Sherman/Denison, Tx, has been closed for years. But we loved that billboard--"Eat with us and get gas," because they had a filling station and a stomach-filling station. Used to have mile markers that were like Burma Shave signs. "40 miles to Stuckey's!" I always got a pecan nut log, although I didn't really like them and my mother ended up eating them when she had a hypoglycemic crash (and it was exactly the wrong stuff to eat, but she did it anyhow). I also got the various toys that would break as soon as you played with them, the "car games," Gumby and "Colorforms" toys and action figures, stuffed animals, etc. Hey, stop laughing--this was LONG before any GameBoy, walkman or iPod MP3 player, laptop computer, or DVD player in the car existed. We are talking about riding in the back of a 1964 Dodge Dart station wagon and maybe getting some AM radio now and then (but mostly not) and playing license plate games, watching for billboards, eating crackers and other "portable" foods, changing clothes in the back seat, putting on and taking off layers of (pretend) makeup or clothing in preparation for the eventual restroom stop in about 100 more miles or so, and being nauseated if I tried to read or draw in the moving car, AND MOSTLY asking (all together, now) "Are we THERE yet?!"
What do you bring home from your travels, if anything? (Other than memories, photos, and perhaps movies/video.)
kitarra (whose LJ I found while reading kielle's journal after it was too late for me to meet *her* in this life, alas) writes: "Whenever I travel, I collect two things from my destination: a cookbook and a book of folklore."Cool.
I used to get those "Day Trips In and Around [area]" books and a map, but that became too expensive. I came home from California twice in the 1980s (Palo Alto/Stanford area, San Francisco Bay area, Monterey peninsula/Pacific Grove/Carmel area, L. A.) carrying stacks of books about the best beaches, the best hiking, Yosemite, etc., and so far we haven't gone back.
I always INTEND to get a cookbook from the area and some other thing that we'll use. I usually end up with a refrigerator magnet and a pair of earrings. Shut up.
*shamefaced look*
As a child, I always wanted the cheeeesiest souvenirs. A plate painted with some attraction or other, a doll dressed up like the holiday that the area hosts (such as Oktoberfest, Native American gatherings, etc.), a View-Master 3D disc of photos from the site, postcards, a T-shirt ("My parents went to Red River and all I got was this lousy T-shirt"), etc. I wanted my parents to scatter stolen ashtrays (which they had anyway--yuck!!!) from various Holiday Inns and ashtrays from various attractions around the house. My mother did once steal a bathmat, accidentally. She had my bathing suit wrapped in it and stuck that into a plastic bag and then we brought the bag home. Suit soured. Nasty.
And stuff from Stuckey's! Are there still any Stuckey's truck stops on your routes? The one that was near Sherman/Denison, Tx, has been closed for years. But we loved that billboard--"Eat with us and get gas," because they had a filling station and a stomach-filling station. Used to have mile markers that were like Burma Shave signs. "40 miles to Stuckey's!" I always got a pecan nut log, although I didn't really like them and my mother ended up eating them when she had a hypoglycemic crash (and it was exactly the wrong stuff to eat, but she did it anyhow). I also got the various toys that would break as soon as you played with them, the "car games," Gumby and "Colorforms" toys and action figures, stuffed animals, etc. Hey, stop laughing--this was LONG before any GameBoy, walkman or iPod MP3 player, laptop computer, or DVD player in the car existed. We are talking about riding in the back of a 1964 Dodge Dart station wagon and maybe getting some AM radio now and then (but mostly not) and playing license plate games, watching for billboards, eating crackers and other "portable" foods, changing clothes in the back seat, putting on and taking off layers of (pretend) makeup or clothing in preparation for the eventual restroom stop in about 100 more miles or so, and being nauseated if I tried to read or draw in the moving car, AND MOSTLY asking (all together, now) "Are we THERE yet?!"
What do you bring home from your travels, if anything? (Other than memories, photos, and perhaps movies/video.)
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Date: 2005-10-03 12:10 pm (UTC)If I can find a souvenir coffee mug, I am a super-happy camper. I've got them from a couple of major horse shows I went to while living in Texas and one with a lobster on it from Nova Scotia (I live here but couldn't pass up the mug--it looks like a lobster from Sherman's Lagoon) among others.
I also like souvenir t-shirts. Again, I have them from horse shows and I try to get one at every concert I go to. I got one when I was at the Alamo a few years back, too.