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A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

couple of days. We then got back on the Pacific Coast Highway, which runs right on high cliffs
overlooking the very edge of the Pacific Ocean, and is a gorgeous scenic drive, and we headed down
towards Los Angeles, and stopped and spent the night at Santa Barbara, where we stayed at the home of
Morris’s sister, Betty, and her husband, who lived in Santa Barbara. My memory does not serve me real
well here, but I believe that their house was right on the golf course of one ofthe tournament courses in
that pail of California, and it could well have been, because Betty and her husband were both avid
golfers.

We went on down to Los Angeles and spent a couple of days looking around, and somewhere within
that 2 or 3 day period we rode on the highest roller coaster in the world, or so it was reputed to be, at
Santa Cruz. 1 used to love to ride roller coasters when I was younger, but before this trip was over, I
found one that whipped me.

After Morris and I had spent the day or two in Los Angeles, we drove the short distance on down to
Anaheim, and went to Disney Land. That was before Disney World in Florida was ever dreamed up,
although it may have been in the secret planning stages.

Then we went to another large amusement park, which really was a rival to Disney Land, known as
Knott’s Berry Farm. They had all kinds of rides and amusements there, and a roller coaster the likes of
which I had never seen.

This particular roller coaster, just before the passengers were taken to the area where they would
disembark, the cars went on past the unloading area on the set of tracks which veered off to the right
somewhat and then headed straight up into the sky for what looked like 400 feet, although I’m sure it
was probably not that high. Those rails just went on up into the sky and suddenly ended. It was real
boogery looking to think of yourself as going up those rails and the car not stopping and shooting off
into space. Of course they had it engineered where that would not happen, as the final ascent was so
steep that the roller coaster car would lose it’s momentum before it got to the end of the tracks and coast
to a stop, and then it would roll backwards down past the unloading area, where the switch would be
thrown to cause it to follow the tracks onto the unloading area.

Needless to say, I did not bother to ride that particular roller coaster, and you would have to hog tie me
and shoot me to get me on a roller coaster today. You don’t see many 83 year olds riding roller coasters
anymore.

After we left Southern California we drove over to Las Vegas and spent another night or two there
playing the slot machines and playing blackjack, and the morning we left Las Vegas we found it was
just a fairly short drive over to the Grand Canyon. That was my first visit to the Grand Canyon, and I
will absolutely never forget the feeling that came over me when I walked up to the edge of that thing
and looked over in to it.

There is an old riddle connected to the Grand Canyon which goes like this: “What did the first man who
rode a horse up to the edge of the Grand Canyon say?”. The answer is “Whoa, you son of a bitch!”

From the Grand Canyon we went back over Hoover Damn, and went north westward until we got to
Lake Tahoe. If you have never seen Lake Tahoe, anyone having any ability or time to travel, should see
it. It is as spectacular almost as the Grand Canyon. That is the area where all of the TV films for
Bonanza were shot. We even got to see the Ranch House on the Ponderosa. We were surprised to find

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