Frankie and Slim

Frankie and Slim
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Monday, May 05, 2008

FAMILY VACATIONS

Our blogger friend Lucy sends us some good tips from the Dollar Stretcher website for taking a vacation-for-less. She has me remembering great family budget vacations.

First, my mother could squeeze a dollar til the eagle grinned..........coughed, choked AND sputtered. We traveled by car on our family vacations and often wondered what those building were that we saw along the way. They had lots of cars parked out front and they had flashing neon signs that read EAT!. Those signs did not attract our parents. The signs that said Road Side Park caught their attention.

Mother always artistically packed a picnic basket for long trips. She used dry ice to keep things cool. No disposable paper plates or cups. Mother packed plastic washable dishes. We ate roadside cereal at breakfast time and roadside sandwiches or chicken or fruit salad at lunch and/or dinner time. It was magic the way mother could fit everything into that basket.

If a journey was long enough to require a motel stay, we drove around a town looking for a vacancy sign and with rooms at the lowest cost. However, finding an inexpensive motel wasn't the whole requirement. Mother had to inspect each potential room and if it was not clean, we drove down the road until we found one that would pass her white glove test.

Those are fun memories of my childhood vacations. My brother, sister and I can actually recall the pleasant meals at picnic tables and remember the beautiful outdoors that made the cereal and sandwiches taste like royal fare. We can also remember hiding in the backseat of the car pretending we were NOT with that lady inspecting the motel rooms.

13 comments:

  1. We could be sisters; my mom did the same things. Always with the picnic basket! I didn't appreciate it then, as I wanted hamburgers and fries (not chicken and potato salad). We didn't stay in hotels often, but they had to be cheap and also clean!

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  2. Judy, did your mom also wear shirtwaist dresses to do housework and shop?

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  3. Oh Granny annie those are wonderful memories...........My parents owned a little general grocery store and many people would stop and buy fixings for their lunch:) It isn't what you do that counts it that you do it together:)

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  4. What a beautiful memory :-) I just popped in to wish you a Happy Mothers Day !! Enjoy your weekend :-)

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  5. Your memories sound lovely! My sis in law is a pro at packing food for trips too. I try but everyone opts for stopping at burger joints.

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  6. I still like to travel that way. Somehow, cheese and crackers at a little park beats a McDonald's hamburger any day.

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  7. Ha. My mom wore what she called house dresses, but not dressy shirtwaists or heels and pearls! We did dress up to go shopping, though, and sometimes even hats and gloves!

    Thanks for the visit. To answer your question, the cost of flowers is astronomical now, compared to a year ago. Everyone has had to raise prices and delivery charges just to break even.

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  8. what a lovely memory...I'm sure it was fun for your mother as well.

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  9. Hi Granny Annie! Thanks for stopping by my place and commenting. It led me over here to you and I enjoyed reading about identical trips that I took with an aunt and uncle. They lived in Cleveland and would stop by Toledo to pick up a niece to spend six weeks at a lake near Gaylord, Michigan. Aunt Ruth packed the same picnic lunches and we kept an eye pealed for a roadside park. The trip from Toledo took about eight hours and today we can do it in less than half the time. You bring back lovely memories to an old f**t. I'll be back --- to read more about your chickens.

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  10. Yes, we travel like that too....My dad was a real penny pincher too. He knew how to have fun without spending much money. When I was young, we would drive down to the beach and sleep in a tent on the beach, now days they don't allow that. We camp in an RV park at the beach, but not on the beach..LOL

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  11. Wow, nothing like those great memories!! Those were fun trips!!

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  12. What great vacation memories. I loved going on family vacations. My dad always took off three whole weeks in the summer, and boy did we have some great times!
    I remember a VERY filthy motel room that we stayed in. It was very late when we stopped, and there was only one choice. My parents were too tired to drive any further, so we stayed. Your mom would NOT have given that motel a good grade. It was awful!!!
    Your mom sounds like a great lady who did a wonderful job caring for her family.

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  13. You have great travel/vacation blog !!!

    Find vacation rentals in worldwide directory
    HolidayHomes.ca vacation rental advertising
    Thank you!!!

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