MY MEMORIES

Charles Glenn Petersen

1977 - Wisconsin Years II

La Crosse (continued)

That next summer (1978) we took the Ramcharger, my fold-out camper, my children plus Nancy’s youngest sister, Michele -who is about the same age as Charles and Margaret- on a 5-week camping trip. Nancy and I slept on one of the fold out wings, Margaret and Michele slept on the other wing and Charles slept on the area in the center of the camper, which with the table being folded down and laid between the benches there in the middle, made into a bed. The plan was that we would travel at most 250 miles a day then stop to see whatever there was to see at that location. Our first major goal was Big Bend National Park in Texas and located on the banks of the Rio Grande. From Texas we headed west to California, then north to Seattle, then east across the Rockies back to Missouri. I still have a picture of me, Margaret, Michele, and Charles taken high in the mountains of Rocky Mountain National Park. The only causality was Michele’s suitcase that fell out of the camper on a steep winding road along Big Thomson Creek coming down from Estes Park in Colorado. We went back up the road, but never found it. Fortunately, we were only one day away from her home in Maryville, Missouri.