I ran across this photo online, and it brought back a lot of memories.
It took me back to late summer 1970, reminding me of my dad's truck and a little camping trip my family made up north.
Obviously the picture above wasn't the exact same vehicle, but it was similar:
I don't actually remember where we went, but I have pictures the family took at Montezuma Castle, Sunset Crater, and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. At this point I have no memories of any of that, other than all the places we went seemed very distant from Phoenix. It's funny because nowadays Ben and I think nothing of making that kind of road trip in a single day.
But I digress.
There are a couple things I remember from the trip. The first and foremost is the one evening I ventured outside to pee after we'd parked for the night and I saw the stars. This night sky was nothing like my backyard in suburban Phoenix. The sky was alive with dots of light. My mom did the same thing after I returned inside and she asked if I knew what the little dipper shaped constellation was called. (Keep in mind I had just gotten into astronomy and was learning the constellations; I hadn't even gotten my first telescope yet.) "Uh, The Little Dipper?" I asked.
"No," she replied. "I know that's in the north. This is tiny. And it's in the east."
I argued with her like any pre-teen would, and finally grabbed my dad's binoculars went back outside to prove her wrong. Shivering my ass off, I scanned the eastern sky and spotted it. She wasn't crazy after all. I brought the binoculars to my eyes and was blown away by what I saw. I had "discovered" the Pleiades.
My love of astronomy was cemented.
The second thing I remember was riding in the camper as we were heading to our destinations—on the sleeper portion over the cab of the truck—without any sort of seatbelts! Ah…it was a different time, for sure.
And lastly, while riding up there, I remember pouring over Radio Shack catalogs. I was fascinated by all the electronic bits and pieces you could buy and although I never (and by never, I mean to this day) grasped the how and why of how it all worked, it held me in its grip.