Vacation Memories

It's time to get back to writing my memories and Memory Monday is a good place to help keep me on track.  I'ts not Monday, it's Friday, but I have some catching up to do.  It's been too long that I have neglected my blog even though I'm writing every day about my life and times at Bubblews I can't add photos and short blurbs are more appropriate there than the long rambles of my blog.

This weeks challenge is a Vacation Memory.  It's not hard to have one as they all fall into the same vacation year after year and what a very lucky girl I was.  My grandparents had a small bungalow in Venice, California and we vacationed there every year.  It was a day's drive back in the fifties from Concord, up in northern California to Venice and I've written before about the drive.  That was an event in itself.  I wrote about it when wrote about fruit stands  on Bubblews.



My grandmothers house was a few blocks from the beach and the first trip was always by car as our parents were with us.  We parked in front of the dime store along the covered walkway built to look like Venice.

 The columns at each archway held carvings of faces at the top that were fascinating to me.

Inside the dime store were wooden floors and bins of yesteryear.  We all picked out new tin pails and shovels and suntan lotion and other beach items then walked out onto the beach to spend the day.  I can almost smell the Pacific, the seaweed and mussel shells.  The roar of the surf and the wet sand where we collected shells and starfish are embedded in my memory.  My dad took us into the water and helped build sand castles and my mom tanned and passed out drinks and snacks.  She occasionally waded a bit as we jumped up and down in the waves holding her hand and were careful not to splash.

We had two weeks at my grandparents and it was full of activity for all of us.  In addition to the beach there was a long boardwalk of shops to explore and a recreation playground.  The playground has been in several movies and TV shows, even in Sesame Street episodes.  I see it often.  We would walk over in the mornings and play all day at the center.  There were adults in charge there and we could check out play equipment such as balls, jump ropes and such.

When we walked home to my grandparents house we passed the four square church and the Safeway Supermarket, when we arrived we would hose off the sand from the backyard hose before coming into the house. I would imagine we left plenty of sand inside as well.

 I loved their little backyard.  It had an enclosed claw footed bathtub that had been repurposed into a fish pond that was full of goldfish, some grew to be quite large.  The sides were covered by baby tear ground cover plants and other flowers and decorated with shells.  There was a garage with lots of books in it, notably Perry Mason and other detective books where we spent hours reading.  They had Adirondack chairs on the patio and a flower bed all around with tropical flowers and trees that we didn't have up north. It was a great place to play.

Year after year we spent two weeks there and the memories fade into one large impression of surf and sand and fun.

Memory Monday