Pictures of my 1965 trip out west - Addendum to AW-27

    In November I was able to go to Ohio for a short visit.  The purpose was a reunion of my Geology department to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first masters being awarded there at Ohio University.  I looked forward to going seeing as how I had gotten both my BS and MS from that department.  I had a great time, and took some pictures of Athens, Ohio.  I even got to go on a field trip, which I plan to write up at another time.
   Since I was in Ohio I had to swing on up north to visit my family.  While I was there, I borrowed some of my families old family photos.  I had been wanting to scan these into the computer for the longest time so that they could be shared with my siblings.  Well I finally got them done and was able to bring them back to my mom, when I went back for a longer visit for Christmas.

When I wrote my piece for Accretionary Wedge - 27 I thought of all the wonderful things I saw.  I was surprised we had as many photos of that time as we did when I went through the family pictures.  I remember they were taken by my sister who took them on her girls scout 'brownie' camera she had gotten years before the trip.  It was a very cheap camera, and only took roles of 12 pictures.  I remembered we lost a couple of the roles because they were in a bag and someone through it out as trash - so there were whole sections of the trip that were missing.  I remembered wanting to take more pictures but it seemed like it was so expensive to buy the film and have it develop back then so my parents didn't want to waste film as they called it and limited the number to just one or two of each place. Also for the longest time the pictures were not properly stored in an album or storage box.  A lot of them had faded and were ruin, but yet some of them still made it today. None of them were labeled and were out of order -- so I am going on my memories of that time, (they may be wrong since it was quite a few years ago.) They were fun to see.  So here are some of the photos of that trip taken back in August of 1965.

 I think this was Souix Falls in South Dakota

 

Dinosaur park,  Rapid City? South Dakota

 

The badlands South Dakota

 

The badlands South Dakota

 Mount Rushmore National Memorial,  South Dakota

 

Falls at Yellowstone National Park

 

Old Faithful at Yellow stone National Park.  I remembered this picture was taken on August 25, 1965 because it was my best friend's birthday and I wanted to be at his party and not there.  Now I'm so glad I was there seeing Old Faithful because I have always remembered it and I wonder if I would have remembered that party like I did Old Faithful. Now I am sure he was glad I was seeing Old Faithful because when I came back I told him all about it.  Later in life he became a geologist too. 

 

Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park - 8-25-1965

 

I remembered being scared seeing this bear and was just glad I was in the car and not out of it.  I remembered the rangers telling us not to feed the bears since they were wild.  We called him Yogi after Yogi the bear which was a popular cartoon series at the time.

 Buffalo at Yellowstone.  I remember my brother getting out of the car to take this shot and one of the male buffalo's decided to charge him.  We were so glad there was a barbed wire fence between us and the buffalo, but felt like it really wouldn't be much if the buffalo kept on coming.  We didn't stay long at that location.

My first view of the Pacific Ocean.  I know we went to Portland first after coming there following the Columbia River gorge.  I remember seeing the salmon steps and found watching the salmon run so fascinating.  I couldn't find any of those pictures or the pictures of Portland.  I really don't know where this is on the coast, but I do feel like it was in Oregon.  

 

We did go up to Puget Sound - Washington.  I thought that was such a funny name a had trouble spelling it, but it always stuck with me.  This might be a picture of that area or it might also be where the Columbia river goes into the ocean.  I know we stayed a day in both locations.  

 

We spent a couple of days in San Francisco, California and of course we had to ride the trolley.

 

We also had to take the tour of the bay on a boat.  I thought it was so neat to have been able to go over and under the Golden Gate bridge.

 

This was my favorite picture of the whole trip. I am 9 years old (soon to turn 10) at the time and am in the lower right hand side. Here I was collecting a rock sample for my mom.  Originally I thought this picture was taken when we were seeing the Snake River in Idaho, but now I think it was in Sierra Nevada range

This was always my mom's favorite picture.  It was taken of all of us.  We were at Yosemite National Park.  I do remember Yosemite as being my most favorite spot that we visited during the whole trip.

Lake Mead, Nevada - looking at it from the Hoover Dam.

Grand Canyon National park, Arizona.  This was second most favorite places to visit.  I think I didn't care so much for it as Yosemite because I was afraid at looking down and seeing how deep the canyon really was.  

 

Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona.   I just remember us driving and then stopping and getting out and looking and then getting in the car again and driving for what seem like forever only to stop and see more of the canyon.  I could not believe how big and long it was.  I was so impressed with it.  I could not believe that it was formed from the Colorado river eroding it away.  I thought for sure there had to have been a big machine to help it at one time.  Back then I had no concept of the geologic time and how long the river was able to work on it.  I do recall when I got home I went to the library and got some National geographic out to read more about it.  That was the first time I looked up anything geologic in nature.  

 

Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado.   Before we got to this place I remembered us stopping off at the four corners - where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet.  I thought it was so neat to be able to stand in four states at the same time.  I couldn't find that picture but I know we took some.  By then I was getting home sick and just wanted to get back home.  I know all of us were feeling that way.  

But then we stopped here and I was fascinated by this things I was seeing again.  It amazed me that Indians could build a place like this to live in.  What impressed me more than anything was how big it was and how many people who must have lived there at one time.  After that for the longest time I wanted to be an archeologist so I could study places like this more.   I took my first geology class to help me with archeology but after that class I could never go back to archeology and just kept with the geology.  

  I don't know why this picture was in with this group because as I recalled we then saw some caves which might have been the Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico. Then we headed to Denver and Pikes peak- again no pictures of either one.  But this looks like The Alamo in San Antonio, Tx.  But it could have been a mission house built in a similar fashion to the alamo that we saw along the way.  By then I really wasn't paying much attention to where we were going.  I was dreading going back home because as soon as we were to get back school would be starting.  I wanted to keep on traveling hoping I would be able to miss some school if we did.  I thought this stuff was so much more educational and I thought I would only make a trip like this once in my lifetime and thus should see as much of the United States as I could.  Finally we did get home on Labor day.  I remembered I hated that the next day school started and I didn't miss a day of school.