Did you ever have one of those vacations that was stuck in your head even long after the vacation was over? Whether you enjoyed it, or you hated it? Or, maybe you have a dream vacation in your mind that just won't go away, and you wish that you could get away to take that vacation? That is how my last summer vacation I went on was like.
My father received an invitation to a 10-year reunion from his cousins over in North Dakota. He was born in North Dakota in 1945. That is where he grew up until the age of 10. It was then that he and his family moved to Seattle - where he lives today. North Dakota is where a lot of his family members and friends live today.Archie works for the U.S. Postal Service and gets a week or two off in the summer for vacation. He and I haven't spent much time together lately, and neither of us have enjoyed a vacation away for a long time. He asked me if I would like to go to the reunion with him, and of course I said, "Yes!" So started my adventure of meeting family I met when I was little, and seeing where my dad grew up when he was little. The last time I saw that place I was very young and don't really remember too much about it at all.
On July 16th in the year of 2001 my dad came over and we hooked up the camper to his truck. (It's the type of camper that sits on the truck itself.) After we got the camper attached to the truck my dad took it with him back to his house - where he lives by himself, and took care of all the amenities. Took care of the food, etc. Also, while it was down there, he loaded his things into it.
On July 17th, my father drove the camper and the truck up here to Bothell, WA, where I live. He came to pick me up and get everything of mine loaded up into the camper and ready for our trip to North Dakota. After saying all our good byes's we put my dog, Kelly, a German Shepherd/Black Labrador/Wolf mix, into the camper. I got into the back, and we left.
The first stop that we made when we left were a few things that my dad forgot to get from the store. After that, we were on our way! Not too much happened that day except for Kelly and I havng to get used to riding in the back of the camper, and getting used to the heat of it all. The temperatures that day were around 80° and that made it a couple degrees hotter inside of the camper. Even with the windows open. Even while crossing the Columbia River!
On that day we had driven until late at night. I admit, I fell asleep in the back of the camper for a couple hours before we stopped for the night anyway. When we had finally stopped for the night we had driven through Idaho, and switched time zones. We ended up only having a couple hours of sleep that night before we got up and got going again.
July 18th, our second day of travel, we got up early in the morning. When I had walked Kelly, we, well I, saw a deer (doe) in the woods just about 10 feet in front of us as Kelly got her morning walk. I found out that we were in the mountains of Montana. Quite beautiful scenery if you ask me.
As I walked Kelly around the campground I noticed a lot of little bunnies running around, and I mean a lot! My dad found out and told me later that they were a 4-H project from the children of the owners of that campground. They had bred them for the project for school and next thing they knew, they had many bunnies on their hands. They allowed them to roam around freely on their property of the campground because the bunnies didn't bother the guests.
As we left the campground we saw the same doe that I had seen earlier. She was with her babies. There were about 3 of them, besides the doe. I got to see just how many bunnies were there when we left because they all scattered when we were leaving. They were all over.
As we drove that day, I got to see a farm with a bunch of Buffalo in the yard. That was about the only Buffalo that I had seen at all, the whole trip so far. Also, I saw farms with sheep, range cattle, wild horses, and even some donkeys here and there. i saw a couple deer along the road too. There were also a good many Peregrine Falcons flying all around throughout the whole trip.
July 19th, our third day of travel, started out pretty much the same way. We got up early and headed out. we crossed the Yellowstone River twice that day. I saw more wild animals, only now a couple foxes started to show up in my view also. Because we had pushed it, we reached North Dakota that day. We went through Rugby, ND, the geographical center of the North America.
July 20th, our fourth day of travel. We reached Dunseith, ND, and saw that now it was quite run down from years of neglect. It wasn't the way that my dad remembered it being, as he kept repeating over and over to me. Up until now I had been riding up in the camper so my dad was overly anxious to talk to me and tell me everything that he remembered about where he grew up when he was little.
We road through town and he went to his old house that he grew up in. An old white colonial home. One floor, three bedrooms, with a small kitchen and small living room. There was a little room that encased the front door and another door that led inside the house. My dad and his sister used to have to sit in there when they would come in from playing when it snowed, and wait, because ofthe temperature difference. Outside would be 40° below and if they didn't wait, they might've passed out. Also, if there was ice on the buckles, they couldn't get their shoes off. After they waited and warmed up, they could finally go inside.
After he showed me that house he took me up to his grandmother's old house that was very similar to the house in Dunseith, only it was in Bottineau, where the reunion was going to take place, and look around. The house looked the same as the one in Dunseith, but it was on a farm. We had to climb over a barbed wire fence and then walk up a long dirt driveway, around some trees and head up to the house. The worst thing about it was that there were thousands of mosquitoes and horse flies around. I had sprayed my dog down with some non-toxic bug spray that I had used and still she had thousands on her legs and her whole body. The other thing we had to watch for were the range cattle. They were using the land as a place to keep the cattle. My dad told me that the female would probably have a problem with my dog because she looked like a wolf and they wouldn't bother her, but the males wouldn't be scared so easily. Our walk consisted of frequent stops to figure out where the mooing was coming from and to make sure it wasn't headed our way.
We made it to the house, took a couple pictures, and made it back to the camper easily without being attacked by range cattle. When we left there, my dad took me up to Turtle Montain Cemetery and we found grave sites of our relatives. I took pictures of all the graves that we found. While we were there and looking around we saw a bunch of chipmunks running around. I made friends with one and got a couple close ups of him, or her, for that matter. After that we went in search of a place to camp for the night. Which we found in a campground by a lake. It was quite a nice place to stay.
July 21st, our fifth day of travel. We came down from the campground we had stayed the night before and found Tommy Turtle Park/Campground. After we had set up the camper there my dad found out that we were only a couple campers away from a relative that we hadn't seen in years. I had seen them when I was little, but I didn't remember them. In relation to me, they were my granfather's nephew and wife, on my dad's side of the family. Evelyn and Marvin Iverson. They were celebrating their anniversary while they were there for the reunion. We met and talked with them for a little while and I found out that they live in Enumclaw, Washington, which isn't too far away from where I live. I told them that I would get my dad to bring me up there so we could visit them later when we got home. I really liked them.
After meeting up with them, the reunion took place in the local senior citizen's home. I met a lot of relatives that either i had never met, or I met them when I was little, and I didn't remember them. They served food, had some games, and just a bunch of socializing. They also announced Marvin and Evelyn's 50th anniversary as a surprise for them. They were definitely shocked. As the reunion went on, I walked around and got a bunch of pictures of everyone. Some people were growing tired ofthat I'm sure, because there were so many people walking around taking pictures of everyone and everything.
After the reunion, my dad and I walked out to the camper. When I went inside I started getting scared and panicked. Why? When I looked around, I didn't see my dog anywhere. I had locked all the locks. I was positive that when I went to get my camera, I locked the door. There was only one door to get in and out of. I kept all the windows, but the one against the truck, shut to only a couple inches. Some I had shut all the way. the curtains were shut because I figured it might be a little cooler for my dog to not have the sun shine in on her. One of the curtains that faced the senior citizen's place, I had open enough so she could see me when I walked back and forth. I looked around. There was no way that she could get out, or someone could get in. I started getting really scared. My baby was missing! I told my dad, and as we were checking everything I noticed that one of the windows was open all the way and the screen was broken.
After we searched the camper and looked around, we were going to go ask some relatives that had been outside for awhile, if they had seen Kelly. I struggled to not panick and not cry over losing her - yet. One of the relatives kept calling my dad. When my dad walked over there, the man asked us if we were missing our dog because he and some of the kids, that he was playing with, saw a dog run across the playground that was next to the senior citizen's home. When I ran to look, I saw she was across the playground. She was just laying there! Kelly! I guess what had happened was thatKelly had gotten really hot in the camper, even though I kept checking on her, adn she was tired of being in there alone. She climbed up on the counter, opened the window about the stove with her nose, and broke out! Of course we are talking about the same dog that at home can open doors when she really wants to go through them.
I ran to her yelling her name, and Kelly, I'm sure, was thinking, "What's wrong with you mommy?" I put her in the camper and got her more cold water, with ice in it, and my dad brought her back to Tommy Turtle Park. I had explained to my dad that what Kelly needed and wanted was tp play in a lake or something that equivalent, because at home she had her own swimming pool for when she was hot. We found a hose and sprayed her down with cold waterfor about 5-10 minutes. Which, as I told me dad she would like - and she did. Momma knows what's best for her girl. Kelly felt a lot better after that and clamed a little more. Also, because we brought her up to sit in the front seat with us.
We left there and went to find a childhood friend of my dad's. We found him and we stayed and talked with them for a little while before we moved on and started our trip back home. When we went back through Dunseith we went to the souvenir shop that the man I had just met said would carry a book of Bottineau, ND, and Dunseith, ND, throughout the years. The book told about those two places thorughout the years. Even in the olden days. we also bought a couple souvenirs for our friends and relatives. After we left there we started heading home.
July 22nd, and 23rd, our sixth and seventh day of travel. Not too much happened the next couple days of travel, except that we made it through North Dakota, and then Montana. I traveled up front with my dadamd we tried remaining as cool as possible. It was extrememly hot in the plain flat land we had to drive through, mainly because there wre no mountains, not trees, and nothing to keep the sun off the truck. Kelly was a little cooler up above with all the windows in the bed open and air blowing in on her from all sides. I wasn't worried about her trying to get out of the windows up there because they were too little, and I knew as long as we were by the camper, she wouldn't try to get out. Not saying that I wasn't checking on the windows and her every couple hours, just to make sure she was still there though.
July 24th, our seventh and almost last day of travel. While we were in Montana, we decided to stop and go through a drive through bear refuge. We got to see black bears and inside of an enclosed area, grizzlies. They were young ones though. No big grizzlies. I think that all the bears were pretty young. The black bears were sleeping when we went trhough there, but the grizzlies were awake and running around. I was just waiting for Kelly to start barking at them, but luckily she was very quiet. My dad was surprised when he saw one of the grizzlies run across the road and run up a tree. Still to this day he always exclaims, "I can't believe how fast and easy they went up that tree!"
Our next drive through was the 3-4 hour long drive through the National Bison Range. It did take 4 hours! We had to drive all the way up the mountain and then all the way back down. Going very slowly down because the gravel road was almost a 45° angle. We stopped a couple times to let the brakes cool off a little. We got to see a bunch of antelope, deer, and of course Bison. There were also a variety of birds that were flying around, including Peregrin Falcons.
That night we had driven until late at night. I was falling asleep by the time we had gone through Idaho and made it to Sprague, Washington. It looked like a ghost town at night, but we found a nice campground by Sprague Lake, and camped for the night.
July 25th, our final day of travel. We drove through the rest of Washington to make it home to Bothell, WA, and when we went over the Columbia River, my dad stopped off at the park so Kelly could play in the Columbia! We got out and let her play in the river. She got my dad to play in the river with her also, while I, momma, took their picture. After we let her play and swim for a while, we got back in the truck and made the last of the drive home. We arrived in Bothell, WA, home, around 2pm that day. We unpacked the camper, my dad took it home with him, unpacked his stuff, brought the camper back a couple days later, put it up, and our trip was officially over.
As you can read, I definitely had one of those vacations that stick in your head a long time after you have the vacation itself. The memories I made from that vacation are going to stick with me for a long time. The feelings I got from that trip are also going to stick with me for a long time, if not forever. I had a lot of fun on that vacation with my dad. I got to spend time with him longer maybe in one period of time then I have been able to spend with him for a long time. I won't forget that. I was also able to share that trip, those memories, with my best friend, my dog, my baby, Kelly. I'm glad that I was able to do something like that with her. I'm glad my dad got to see why I love her so much. She's so smart and a great dog. He got to enjoy her. I am also glad that you could relive my trip with me. It was a pleasure. Now go out there and have one of those vacations for yourself. Don't be afraid to try something new.
"The only thing to fear is fear itself."
-Theodore Roosevelt-
The above is what I submitted to my school when going for my high School Diploma and I had to write something for a school paper. I dedicate it to two of my best friends who are no longer with us. I love and miss you both so much. My dad and Kelly. My dad died on August 27, 2001, his 56th bday from a heart attack. Kelly I had to put down a few months later, April 3, 2002, because she had severe hip dysplasia and got really sick. I hadn't the money to take care of her, and there were no surgeries that could help her. She was only 5 and a half. It broke my heart, but I had to do it.
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