Page 134 - a-columbia-county-boys-recollections-and-memories-of-columbia-county-florida-(2012)-lenvil-h-dicks

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

From there we went on up to Maine, and look a ferry, with our car, to Nova Scotia where we
disembarked and drove the car all the way around Nova Scotia and back into the State of Maine and
back down to New York on the way home.

My memories of these places that we went to come back to me in different ways at different times, but I
would find it impossible to tell all of the places we went, much less the order in which we took the trips,
so let it suffice to say that we traveled an awful lot when the kids were small and when they were
growing up.

After Julie and I were divorced, and I want to give her credit for always allowing me to have the
children with me at any such time as I wanted to, 1 was never under any type of restriction or schedule
as far as having the children with me. I had as free a hand with them as 1 could have possibly had, even
though she had legal custody and they lived with her.

I still spend an awful lot of time with the kids, and have a very close relationship with all three of them
to this day. As far as they are concerned, it is as if their mother and 1 had never divorced.

Just Suzanne, Brad, Andy, and I flew to California on another occasion and rented a car and just drove
around for a few days. We visited the big Redwoods in northern California, and we went to Yosemite
Park, and for some reason they wanted to visit a small town called Mineral King, which was located at
about 12,000 feet elevation, way up on top of a mountain in the Sierras. I had no objection to driving up
there, since 1 have always liked to go places I have never been before, and when we got up to Mineral
King we did not find anything there of any particular interest, except that it was a nice drive up there and
back.

One thing that all of the kids still remember to this day is that while we were going up the mountain to
Mineral King we got behind a Volkswagen Bus which just poked along and poked along and kept us
from making any time at all. We all got exasperated and out of patience with being held up by that old
Volkswagen bus, and we finally just stopped by a nice little stream with a waterfall just to stretch our
legs and let the bus get on out of our way.

Upon resuming our trip up the mountain we went about 2 miles, and there was the Volkswagen bus
sitting right in the middle of the highway, being totally consumed by fire. It was on fire from one end to
the other, and after checking to see that the occupants were out of it, we all just stood by and enjoyed
watching it bum. It is sort of funny to think how we might have taken pleasure in seeing that bus burn,
but we had gotten so out of patience with being held up going up the mountain by the bus being in front
of us, that we felt as if the Lord had just reached down and gave them what they deserved. I do not
really think that of course, but Suzanne and Brad and Andy still remember Mineral King even though
they were quite small at that time, especially Andy. 1 suppose if I had to guess at their ages at that time
that Andy would have been about 10 and Brad about 11 Vi and Suzanne about 13. There is only a 16 Vi
month period between Andy’s birth and Brad’s birth, and only about 19 months between Suzanne and
Brad. In fact, all 3 of them were bom in one day less than an exact 3 year period, as Suzanne was born
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on October 5 , and Andy was born on October 4 , just almost exactly 3 years later. I am sure that I will
think of other things I wish I had said about some of those trips, but they constitute some of my most
pleasant memories of my life.

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