My family put a pretty big value on getting away from the regular routine at home and doing something different. There were a lot of growing up years when cash was tight which made it hard to celebrate with my cousins who talked about their trips to Hawaii. In fact my first airplane experience didn’t come until after I left home. All that said, we still got our fair share of goofing off time.

The first memory I have of car trips was our regular drive to grandma and grandpa’s house in Landmark, 3 hours from home. I didn’t realize until my teen years that they happened every 6 weeks like clock work. We would leave early on Sunday morning to make the 3 hour trip across the Manitoba prairie regardless of the weather. There wasn’t much weather that slowed down my Dad. He would rather get stranded than miss out on something because he didn’t try.

Multiple times a year our family would go away for the weekend. In summer this was camping and in the winter it was a trip to see family or a hotel stay in Winnipeg. More than one of these weekends were camping at Spruce Woods provincial park, about 30 minutes from home. This was close enough that Grandma, the aunts and all the Treesbank cousins could set up camp on Thursday and all the Dads could drive back and forth to do the farming, chores and church duties as required. Camping trips with my Dad’s side of the family were near Clear Lake. It’s interesting how Clear Lake became the camping favourite for our siblings, kids, nieces and nephews later in life.

There are at least 3 larger vacations that come to mind but some of them are a bit fuzzy in my memory. The first one happened when I was quite young and my Dad was running a custom haying business. It started raining and the forecast was for a long stretch of rain. As the story goes my Dad checked the weather forecast for everywhere within driving distance and decided that the family was going camping in North Dakota where it was not raining. When we got to North Dakota, Dad got word that haying was not going to start up for a bit so our camping trip got extended to Montana and South Dakota. I remember going to see Mount Rushmore and I remember Billings Montana for some reason.. I think it was on that trip. I have some vivid memories of staying in Yellowstone next to Old Faithful but I think that may have been on a different trip.

The second trip I distinctly remember is of western Canada. I remember waking up in Banff and seeing mountains for the first time as we stumbled out of our little cabin rental. Something is obviously mixed up here because the only cabins I’ve been able to find that match the description in my memory are actually in Wasagaming near Clear Lake Manitoba.. but the mountains were amazing and still inspire me today. On that same trip I remember the Bouchard Gardens on Vancouver Island, one of my Mom’s favourite stops. This trip was my introduction to the long winding road through the mountains that leads to my cousins in the lower mainland. This is when my initial memories were formed of Abbotsford where my Dad’s oldest two siblings, Clarence and Anna settled with their respective families.

When I entered high school, my parents decided that time was running out for a longer family trip that would create some epic memories. As with the other trips, this was a camping trip. I remember us strapping a canoe to the top of our pop up camper which was towed by our wood panel station wagon. It was so stereo typical of the late 70s in Canada. This trip came a few months after my 16th birthday so I got to drive the station wagon for a few hours and I was in my glory! It was my first real experience of keeping a car and trailer on the road when there’s a significant crosswind. I’m impressed that my parents gave me that opportunity. This trip took us all the way to Phoenix Arizona and back. I remember staying in a modest motel ‘resort’ in Mesa with a swimming pool and I remember looking into the Grand Canyon. The interesting part is that my most vivid memories are about driving a station wagon with a trailer, down a US freeway.