When Mother and Dad (Currey) took 3-day-old me home from the hospital and into their lives in 1947 they were in their mid-forties and still recovering from the loss of their son in World War II. Before the war they led a very active life filled with camping/trailer trips, boats, crafts (like basket making, and leather and bead work) and urban farming. They also amassed a significant collection of Native American textiles, baskets and pottery.
After my arrival they cast about for a new hobby and found it in rock hounding, attending meetings of the local mineral and gem society in Balboa Park to learn what to look for (and what to do with what they collected afterwards).
Sometime in the early 1950s we went on a field trip to the Chocolate Mountains in Imperial Valley sponsored by the society. I remember the ride through this wash as we followed other cars and I think we were all there to look for geodes.*
I'm glad we weren't the ones to get stuck like that brown car did.
[From my personal collection]
And I have no explanation for why we brought the boat.
*Geode definition here. You can see a BLM publication covering the Chocolate Mountain area here (PDF).
© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.
I bet the boat was just up there and it was more trouble to take it down than to take it along!
ReplyDeletePS Rockhounding was all the rage in the 50s, I remember my family doing it also.
ReplyDeleteDad also took adult education classes to learn how to weld.
ReplyDelete