Go west, young people

I found some letters I had written to my family in 1968. My first husband, Gene, and I traveled across the country as a scouting trip of possible future vacation places. He was in his second year of law school and real life, as we called it then, was going to be happening to us the next summer. We left Concord in early June, 1968, in a Volkswagon, with a huge, Sears canvas tent, and the top tier of our wedding cake as we would be someplace "out there" for our first anniversary on June 17.

The first missive is a post card of the Rutherford B. Hayes Libary in Fremont, Ohio.
Dear Folks,
As you can tell we made pretty good time today. We would have done better but I messed up on the navigation and we went right through Cleveland. Tomorrow we hit Chicago-hope I do better. We stopped at about 8:00 after a 15 hour day and 725 miles. You should get a map and keep track of us.
Will write again tomorrow.
Love
Bonnie & Gene

The following Tuesday this letter was written from a Holiday Inn in ALbert Lea, Minnesota.

Tuesday
Dear Mom, Dad, and Beth Ann,
This will be our last night in a motel. Tomorrow we will be in good camping country. I hope it cools off a little bit, 95 degrees at 8:00 in the evening is a little too much!
I've been watching birds just to keep from going into a trance. Dad, you should have seen the Ring Necked Pheasant I saw last night. It was huge and the sun shining on it made it look like shiny copper.
I did very well guiding us through Chicago today. (Gene added, She sure did!). I could feel the ole acid bubbling around in my stomach after that traffic.
We saw some beautiful farmlands today in Minnesota. Hopefully, we will get to the Badlands to camp.

Wednesday
We just heard about Bobby Kennedy. That's really awful.

love
Bonnie

Tune in next time for news from the Badlands

1968

My next blog will be letters to my family that I wrote in 1968. I was 22 and had just left home in 1967. stay tuned.