Our Trip Back East

 Dad built the camper to bring our family closer together and give us a chance to make happy memories.  It worked.  Dad loved American history, maybe because he was born on the 4th of July.  He minored in history at ASU, and taught it at the high school before becoming an administrator.  Dad wanted to share his enthusiasm for our country’s beginnings with us, so during the summer of 1971 he planned an amazing trip back east in our camper.  We visited all of the major American History sights, and most of our Church history sights as well.  It was an awesome trip!

We left Mesa on a Saturday afternoon, July 10, 1971.  It was exciting to be back in the camper again, although after a year everyone was a bit bigger and all eight of us were pretty cramped in that tiny space.  Sharon was four years old now, and Julie six, but they were still small enough to sleep by mom and dad or Phillip on the upper bunk.  Usually Keith slept on the seat of the cab, and Linda and I slept above the cab at the front of the camper. 

Like always, it took longer than dad had hoped to get everything packed and stowed away in the camper, so we didn't leave until after 2:00.  We stopped at a Jack-in-the-Box for dinner, or lunch, and then our vacation began. 

We didn't get far.  Since tomorrow was Sunday, and Dad didn't want us to travel on the Sabbath, we stopped to camp up on the Mogollon Rim, not too far from our cabin.  You can imagine our surprise when we met two families from our ward already camping there.  Especially since one of them was one of dad's two councilors in the Bishopric.  That meant his other councilor was left at home to conduct meetings that Sunday all by himself.  I guess they had planned it that way, so everything was ok, but still we hadn't expected to spend Sunday with the Garrett's in the mountains.