Question of the week: What was your best and or worst vacation memory?
By Tom Peterson
Welcome to Question of the Week, a weekly news column that poses timely questions about life, politics, culture, economics, health, and more to people out and about in our communities. Our hope at CCC News is that having this space dedicated to being curious about other people’s experiences can help us to deepen our understanding of people from all walks of life.
This Week’s Question: What was your best and or worst vacation memory?
Maeya Arnhold, The Dalles, 30 and daughter Hailie
We met Maeya with her two daughters at Thompson Street Park. She had no problem answering the questions.
“A bad vacation,” she questioned. “A bad vacation would not be going.”
Good point.
She said recent good memories included a waterpark in Yakama. “The YMCA’s have parks and they are pretty big and nice and a lot less expensive.”
Jeanna Medellin, 48, Paul Medellin, 49, Spokane
German Pointers, Harley and Aku
“We’re on vacation right now,” said Jeanna. “We went to Coos Bay, and we’re headed home. Harley, here, wanted to bring home an Oregon duck.”
“The drive home is always the saddest,” she said. “We’re pouting. We’re headed back to 94-degree heat. You know the nickname for Spokane?”
“No,” I said.
“Smokane,” because it’s always smoky this time of year.
“We used to go to Priest Lake when I was a kid,” I told her. We’d stay on Kalispel Island and the water was just awesome. Clear, deep and not too cold.
“My mom would always cry when we had to leave,” I told Jeanne. “We’d be loading up the van to leave and she would run down the dock and dive in for one last swim. And then we would get in the van and she would start crying.”
Brandi Adams, 39, Bend but formerly of The Dalles. TDHS Class of 2001. Wahoo! With son Reid
Brandi was in The Dalles visiting grandparents. Her son was testing out his feet at the skate park.
“I would go back to Maui,” she said. “The sand, the warmth and ocean and sitting back with a beer and watching the kids on the beach. Oh yeah, Maui. We went in October of last year. We’re going back this year. It’s my husband’s 40th birthday.”
His name is Jerrad Adams, also a TDHS grad.
“No bad times,” I asked.
“When I was a kid,” she said and then her sentence trailed off.
Katherine “Kathy” Berry, 84, The Dalles
We met Kathy in the Dairy Queen parking lot and she had a date with a hot fudge sundae.
“Growing up we did not have a vacation,” she said of the ‘30s and ‘40s - depression and wartime.
“I lived in Bell Fourche, South Dakota and all the farmers used to bring us their eggs. Me and my two brothers worked on them. We would wash them and candle them. I would use a piece of sandpaper with a block of wood to get them clean.”
Tim Polehn, 43, The Dalles
“Taking your personal phone to China is not a good Idea. It messed mine up,” he said.
Tim had gone to Shanghai and Nanjing on a familiarity trip to meet purchasers of cherries.
“The phone got hacked into. It started acting weird. I had to get rid of it. The home button would take me to a Chinese landing page. And when I had a conversation on it, weird ads would pop up afterward. But I am not sure if that was Facebook or China.”
Tom Peterson, 53, The Dalles
“Ah, the Redwoods some 12 years ago. Started at the Great Crater and moved on to the towering Sequoia. I contemplated the fourth... bike... every day. It got jammed on the rack with an old bungee and a prayer every time we loaded that Tahoe. Epic Father's Day bike ride - my choice - on a Humboldt County trail included an unclimbable 2-mile hill with a burned-out 69 Camaro convertible full of wasps at the top. Eerie. Who could resist? I got stung. Steep downhill. Celia, my daughter, went over the handlebars. And a Pitbull tried to kill us at the end. It was Dad's choice awards: Everybody wins.”
