Sunday Drive: Merchants Beach - 1964

I've already shared photos of Merchants Beach taken in 1960 in a previous post as well as a picture of our Land Cruiser when it was new. Here they are together in the summer of 1964.

[From my personal collection]

© 2017 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Currey

Roughly ten years later than my post showing the Currey vehicles parked on the driveway at our Encanto home, here's the lineup in front of the Ocotillo house in 1961, minus Mother's silver 1960 Ford Falcon that almost never made it to the desert and the Farmall Cub.

[Dad always had a hard time getting the exposure right to allow for the bright desert sun. From my personal collection.]

  

[From my personal collection]

I don't remember where Dad got this tractor with its skip loader and box blade but I'm certain he got a deal on it. I almost never drove it: not only was it a bit too much for me to handle--although it had power steering I had to literally stand up on the clutch to shift gears--but Dad absolutely adored using this piece of machinery.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Sunday Drive: Currey

Here it is, our brand-new 1961-62 Toyota Land Cruiser* sitting proudly in the front yard of the Currey's desert house in Ocotillo. This is the vehicle I first learned to drive, off-road in the Imperial Valley, and it was a beast! You just knew you could go anywhere with it.**

[From my personal collection]

Dad bought it from John A. Rose's Toyota dealership in Mission Valley and he loved how well-built it was. (He enjoyed pointing out to people how every cotter pin--and other loose part--had its own little chain attaching it to the car so it wouldn't get lost if it fell out on a rough patch of road.) Of course he chose a red one.

*I don't remember exactly what year, but my guess is based on the style of the rear view mirror, the lack of the tiny rear corner windows added in later years and the fact that the yellow/black California license plate was changed to black/yellow the next year. The car was so new that its tags hadn't arrived from the DMV yet.
**One summer we even used it to pull our 21-foot Boles Aero trailer to Oregon and back. I'll have to hunt out a picture of that.

© 2015 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.