A “Time Patrol” movie
Previously on Time Patrol. December 1966, our family had been invited by a friend to spend Christmas in California. Great. When we arrived she suggested we go to San Diego. Okay. After a long 1,000 miles drive to San Diego, we’d hardly arrived and seen one lone warship in the SD Bay, that our friend said:
“Ok. Let’s go back to San Francisco.”
“What?” My parents took control of the return trip and destinations. So we hit the road again, to Yosemite.
“On the road again.”
At a carwash having a serious conversation with my father. 26c? 27c? Would that be 27 cents a gallon?
Finally made it to the mountains. Yeah! Just beautiful. Yours truly with my brand-new Davy Crockett hat. The cap was full-blown polyester. Not made in China yet. The tail, I’m sorry to say was genuine raccoon tail. I do apologise to the raccoon and its family. Those were other times. I was Davy Crockett exploring the Yosemite. I don’t think Crockett ever made it to California, but the illusion was there. Needless to say, I wouldn’t buy a raccoon hat again.
A frozen river bed. Quite different from the African rivers we’d seen before.
My mother posing on a hill. Remember the grownups’ fascination with hills?
Surely, many of you will recognise those sites.
My father with layers on layers of clothes. I must admit it was a bit chilly. I understand Belgians say: “There is no bad weather. Just bad clothes.” I concur. (Don’t you just love the cars?)
My mother in front of our friend’s car. Strangely enough, after San Diego there are very few photos of our friend… Wonder why. (Poor Marie-Andrée, I’m sure she meant well.)
Last but not least: the waterfalls. Out of this world.
Yosemite was truly one of our most beautiful trips… Amazing.
Those are “screenshots” of the 8mm digitized movie you’re about to see, but “someone” has found very intelligent to include a caption saying: “Screenshot”. Which one has to erase… Waste of time. (I don’t know whether it’s Apple or WP. 🙄)
Enough ranting, hop in, the car is quite large and comfy. Let’s hit “the road again” to Yosemite. The car radio is tuned to a good station:
Equinoxio 
The Half-Dome ?
Merci, Brieuc, pour le voyage, et une belle journée à toi.
Merci Gilles. De même.
Brian Boone in Yosemite
Hahaha! Hadn’t thought of him… Thanks for the laugh Rebecca. 🙏🏻
Beautiful images that describe a very interesting journey. You are delightful with that Davy Crockett hat on your head
These are wonderful memories❣️
Grazie Luisa… A first trip to America. There were ups and downs but I don’t regret it any minute. Now that I think of it, I went back 10-11 years later only. To Grad school. And back and back and back…
🙏🏻🤗💕
Every experience always enriches us a little.👍🌹
Wishing you a happy weekend
Anche a te.
🙏💖🙏
Tu as l’air très fier avec ton chapeau de raton laveur. 🙂
Encore de beaux paysages… Et les voitures…. 🙂
Très fier en effet. Imagine-toi les années 60, mes références c’était Tintin en Amérique et les histoires de cow-boys.
Très beaux paysages en effet. Yosemite est très joli…
Biz
Les années 60 c’est à travers les films et photos que je les imagine. Mais ça avait l’air d’être une chouette époque. 🙂
Biz Brieuc
On a toujours tendance à croire en un âge d’or, mais les années 60, comparées à maintenant, étaient un moment de paix. Bien sûr, il y avait des guerres comme d’hab’. (Celle du Viet-Nam entre autres) mais il n’y avait pas de violence. En été, on partait toute la journée en vélo avec les gamins du village. Un sandwich, un peu d’eau. Amusez-vous bien les enfants. Et on partait “À bicyclette” (de Montand) toute la journée. Là oui, il fallait rentrer à six heures du soir. On avait dix ans.
Maintenant? Jamais!
Biz Mélie
Le bonheur 🙂
Moyennant quoi il va falloir le refaire ce bonheur… Et je ne sais pas comment… Petit à petit…
Bonne nuit Mélie…
I’ve never been. Shame on me!
Well, depends where you live. If you’re in Maine, it’s quite a “ways” away… Now, if you live in California, hop in the car… 😉
Old Willie Nelson’s waiting in his pick-up truck. 😉
💛
Estupendo reportaje.
Muchas gracias. Me gusta la palabra “reportaje”… 😀 Algo hay de eso efectivamente…
Abzos
Up the mountains in Yosemite it can be cold! I recognize El Capitan, the waterfalls and the Tall Tall Trees. From San Diego it was quite a drive! Did I spot a Zeppelin?
You’ve been there right? Thanks for the names. I don’t think I ever knew them. My parents weren’t big on guide books or references. We probably stopped somewhere on the way? Disneyland? I have to check the map.
That was a sort of Zeppelin. A advertising ballon if I recall. Quite eerie. The whole trip was weird…
😉
It would be difficult for anyone to really imagine Yosemite without having been there. I’ve taken many first time visitors there and it never gets old.
I’m sure it doesn’t does it?
I really would want to go back. One of the few places I’d like to go back…
Great trip!
Obrigado. Um prazer viajar com Vc.
Eu é que agradeço!
So nice to read your experiences before Brian. Love the photos.🥰
Salamat Arlene. It’s fun isn’t it? And exotic in a reverse way… Also such a long time ago. Not so much violence as now…
Those days of old, they are precious.🥰
They are. I probably now understand my parents and grandparents better, and I’m getting old…😉 But there was a sense of safety, even with all that happened around all of us… I mean how long did you have Marcos at the top? 30? 40 years?
21 years Brian.🥰
It is a long time…
I love the video! You can’t go wrong with Willie Nelson. It was fitting to have Joan Baez asking Bob Dylan’s perennial question with no answer.
Thank you Liz. Once I “mounted” the film, I knew the music had to be good ol’ Willie. But then, I still had video time left. Started looking for songs of that period and Joan Baez popped up. Naturally. (And no, there is no answer…)
You’re welcome, Brian.
Great ride in the car. Felt as if I was with you on the trip.
It does doesn’t it? Maybe because of the shots my mother took from the front seat…
It’s weird how that happens, but it’s pretty common.
Worked perfectly. Lots of fun.
I visited recently. I need to post photos! Thanks for the reminder! Breathtaking place.
It would be fun to compare photos. So for you, the scenes my mother shot are totally familiar. (Did you buy a -fake- raccoon hat for Little C?)
No. Didn’t even see any there. I’ll try to remember to get some photos of it up soon. For you especially. Just took them with my phone but they are pretty.
Look forward to it.
I liked the soundtrack this time. You amused me with another reference to grownups and hills.
Glad I hit the right music. I’m sure we coincide on a number of artists…
It amused me, looking back after so many years. Now, as a grownup I’ve done my share of mountain-climbing… Cheers Derrick.
Hi Brian, I think this was rather a marvelous experience. In SA we are also used to travelling long distances by car so we don’t think to much about it. I am sure it is similar in the USA.
I’m sure you are. And I’ve done my fair share of driving since. It’s just a matter of setting oneself back in the time. 1966. We’d just spent 5 years in West Africa with dirt roads. America already had a splendid highway network. So it was a change of pace… And you know kids: they don’t like to spend too much time locked inside a car. With our daughters, we used to play games, sing songs… I’m sure you did too.
Yes, opportunities tend to be more obvious in hindsight – especially for kids 🤣
Wonderful Yosemite, and I suspect a lot quieter in a 1960s winter compared with a 2020s summer 😆 We may go back when in California later this year or may not – I’m reluctant to have special memories (from 1991) spoiled by the crowds I hear descend on the Valley these days.
Did I spot an airship near the start of your video?!!
All places were quieter then. Which in days of criticism of “over-tourism” i think is fine. People want and can travel and see different things? Go for it. Even the daftest will learn something. What should be organised and refelcted on is ways to organise the flows. How? I don’t know. I don’t think current solutions are very good.
Yes, that was a sort of Zeppelin, carrying a giant ad or something if I recall.
I agree. I don’t think we can complain that people want to visit places that we also love to visit! Although it would be good to be able to educate some of them about appropriate behaviour. E.g. respect for other cultures and their artefacts and holy places.
Agreed again. I got insulted once by a bunch of Frog tourists in Palenque who were making rude comments -in Frog- about the “locals”. So i told them in Frog to mind their language. I got close to being hit. LOL
Or maybe it was Scotty and Spock, coming to pick us up aboard the Entreprise?
🤣🤣
PS. I also understand your reluctancy about special memories. One of the reasons I often don’t go “back”. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to Africa for instance.
Yes, the cars and the fashions are so much fun to see!
Sooo vintage.
Good that your parents organized the trip back!
In Denmark they have the same annoying saying about bad weather 😉
… and yes, I definitely love the cars!
Haha! It must be a thing of the countries of the North sea…
have a nice week-end “Brigitte”.
Love this series! Serious deja vu.
I can imagine. Must like when a foreigner or an american posts something about Paris. Sort of “hey. I been there. “🙏🏻
The Long and winding road!
Another great Time Patrol chapter Brian! Love the Davy Crockett hat and you looked the part. 😉 I imagine that Yosemite was much less traversed than these days…
Joan Baez I believe? Good choice of music to accompany the vid.
Booked a flight to Washington DC for the 8th, then travel north east (we think) for a month then cross into Canada for a month (if the money lasts). Now up to 70 posts in my draft folder…eek!
I felt the part. Lol. Baez it is. She was a great one. Such a voice.
Going to DC now? How nice. Daughter #2 went to Geore Wahisngton U. She loved it. North america will still be cold for a while. Enjoy your trip.
That’s the main thing!
She certainly has an amazing and very distinctive voice.
Yes, but Italy first. 😉
Fond memories!
Indeed. Likewise for you?
Par chance que tes parents ont mit leur pieds à terre et prit le contrôle du chemin de retour. (Même si c’était dans la voiture de leurs amis!) What the hell were they thinking?
Merci pour ce partage 🙂
Les gens peuvent être étranges chère amie…
Avec plaisir toujours.
(To be continued)
Mets-en!
Looking forward to it.
Wow, these are some priceless photos, Brian. And I will tell you the one thing I wanted as a kid was a Davy Crockett raccoon hat – and for some strange reason I never did get one (although had many different raccoon stuff animals). Yes, with that hat you are free to explore all of the West in the States :-)
The photos of Yosemite show how beautiful and pristine the area was back then – old photos of the US national parks always make me a bit excited because my grandparents on both sides when they came to the States, said the first things they fell in love with were the national parks. Great post, and thank you!
Thanks to you Dalo. I would gladly give you the raccoon hat, though it would be a tad small now, sadly, the polyester hat crumbled to dust after a few years. The tail lasted many many years but was lost in one move or the other…
My hat did convince me to go back to America a dozen years later to Grad school.
So your grandparents both came to the States. “Collis” is probably Irish…
I imagine the parks have changed. Everything does, though Daughter #2 went a few years back and just loved it.
Curiosit. You speak of ‘photos’. Could you manage to see the video? I understand the link does not always work…
Cheers my friend…
It is funny, when I saw the photo of you in the hat, my first thought was immediately the same one I had as a child: “I want that hat.” 🙂 It epitomizes the spirit of an explorer to me, so it fits you very well! The video is excellent; I just watched it again (part to listen to your fine selection of music to accompany it!) – and the waterfall scenes are incredible. Seeing a video of such a treasured time must also be very cool for you. My Dad took slide photos, which always gets my imagination running – but it would be cool to see a video of that time as well to see the movement and make the memory a bit richer 🙂 Well done!
Glad you liked the music. Selected with great care to fit the images… ‘Old Willie and dear Joan can’t fail can they…
Tip: if you still have the slides, anywhere even in an old crate full of dust, there are very simple little adapters that will turn them digital. Then you can improve them (light, colours) with Photoshop or equivalent. And you can view them on any smart TV. And/or, go to Imovie and put music on the slides, turned into a video. Very easy.
Thank you for the tip. I should turn the slides into a video one day – my parents and family would like this. The slides have been digitalized, which, at the time, I thought was the greatest thing ever… technology never ceases to amaze. And yes, Willie and Joan are two singers you can never go wrong with 🙂
Oh, if the slides have already been digitalized, it’s relatively easy then. If you have a Mac, IMovie is a great tool. Fairly easy to master. And you can add audio tracks. John Denver was from around tour parts? Or Colorado?