Catch up with the Eaton family road trip with Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

Editor’s Note: The following is a diary written in 1963, and has been edited minimally to maintain the original spirit in which it was written. Included in the record are photographs taken by the family on the trip, as well as postcards saved by the Eaton children.

In the summer of 1963, Nancy Eaton of Greenville plotted out a cross-country road trip for her and her five children: Betsy, 15, Jane, 14, Chuck, 13 and Susan, 12, and Dick, 10. In their station wagon, the family went from Greenville to California, hitting some of the United States’ most-famous landmarks. This is the fifth installment of 10 in the diary she kept along the way.

In the previous entry, the Eatons saw several famous national parks, including the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon. In this edition, the family visits with the family of one of their mother’s pen pals, Flo, see the Hoover Dam and visit theme parks including Disneyland and Marineland.

June 30

Talked with Archie this morning and had news of you, Mother, as I had requested. I do hope Archie will come down to New Paltz to see you. Archie said you were counting the days ‘til we got back. We are having a glorious time. Chuck thinks we are too rushed. He likes to stay up at night and has a hard time getting started in the morning – like his Father.

We drove around Zion park before leaving. It was more than 200 miles to Lake Mead Boulder Peach where we are spending two night camping, Our table is under twenty foot hibiscus (I think) shrub with pink flowers. There are others that are white which have been planted all around this Recreation Area.

The children are waiting to go to the Lecture which starts at 8:30. It is 8:20. Tomorrow we visit Hoover Dam and do some wash and marketing.

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July 1

We are all in a motel at Barstow, Calif. – halfway between Hoover Dam at Lake Mead and Los Angeles. It was so hot today we left Lake Mead about 10:30 – taking that long in the heat to “break camp.” We went to Hoover Dam – Dick and Sue both swam for an hour before leaving but the heat and the awful stony beach at Boulder Beach prevented the rest of us from going in.

Hoover Dam is prepared for hundreds of visitors a day. I can’t remember whether this is the Dept. of Reclamation, Dept. of Park or Dept. of National Forest or Dept. of Recreation. I think all exist overrun each other and compete with each other. Some are under Dept. of Interior and some under Dept. of Agriculture.

One goes 44 office building floors from top of dam to bottom where turbines are.

The exhibit of the land formation and areas supplied by the dams on the Colorado was also most interesting. All this was air conditioned and it was after one before we left.

The Safeway where we shopped was “refrigerated” but stops for ice and gas were not.

We ate our plums and apricots where we passed the Inspection area. We’d already stopped for pop and to finish our cantaloupe.

The children went swimming tonight while Betsy and I washed four loads. It takes a good hour. It was a help to have Betsy to fold and pile.

Tomorrow a short drive to Anaheim where we have 2 nights reservations near Disneyland. 3 nights in a row and maybe more for we go to Flo’s next.

July 5

Arrived at Anaheim shortly after noon. It was a hot drive. Near Los Angeles we began to see orange groves and flowering oleanders were planted down the middle of the six-lane 3x3 highway.

After lunch Betsy and I went shopping and to the garage. The garage men drove us to a shopping center where Betsy bought a blouse and shorts and I bought a long-sleeved jersey and slacks set which I think I will enjoy at the ranch. We had difficulty getting back to the car but finally they came for us. The others had been swimming in the motel pool while we were gone. At 4:00 Dick and Chuck decided to go to Disneyland, Jane and Sue just wanted to stay there and rest and Betsy and I went to Knott’s Berry Farm, where they have reconstructed a Ghost Town, The ride through the artificial mine was very interesting with life-size wax figures in working positions, scary, too. Then we had a delicious steak dinner in the Steak House (atmospheric adobe) and stayed to see the Campfire show which took place in an arena surrounded by authentic covered wagons.

Chuck and Dick reached home about 10:45 having seen lots.

July 3rd was Chuck’s birthday. We had bought him some fireworks which the girls gave him. Daddy and I gave him money. We left about 9 for Disneyland – broke up into groups there and spent the entire day.

It is a wonderful place – divided into Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland. Train-rides of all sorts, boat rides from submarine, motor, and war canoe Tom Sawyer rafts and Mississippi River boats, Aerial rides – Skiway – Bobsled.

We had a view of the Golden Horseshoe show and dinner at the Tahitian room which was quite elegant food (flaming sundaes) exotic vegetables Betsy had fruit salad served in a pineapple and a good show. There were bands, dance orchestras. The Bell Telephone puts on a circarama my first experience in the movies which you move with. I rocked and swayed and felt seasick.

We reached home at 11:00 P.M. and it was nearly 11 the next morning when we got started for Flo’s.

This was the 4th of July. Flo, her oldest daughter, Eliza, 19, her son Philip, 15, and Phil and Mrs. Hagan were all there. Alice 18 was out. The girls are very ... popular. Philip is ... the same age as Chuck but we prefer Chuck.

Flo had a wonderful ham, potato salad strawberry ice cream meringues dinner for us and we talked afterward. We spent 2 hrs. Flo and my family on the beach before dinner. Left Philip Jr. to play pitch and putt. He is all golf. In the evening the kids watched Chuck set off his fireworks. Thursday night we stayed in a Motel south of La Jolla. Friday we left with sandwiches I made at Flo’s for Mexico and San Diego.

The kids were scared of Mexico uninterested in shopping so we never got out at Tijuana. We spent 2 hours in the lovely Zoo in Balboa Park, San Diego. We should have taken the bus ride.

Last night Alice made Tacos. They were delicious. Swam at La Jolla after San Diego visit.

Today Betsy, Jane and I shopped. There is no sun. Flo does not want us to continue on our way ‘til after the holiday traffic. We slept in her backyard last night. We had a steak dinner. Chuck got quite a burn. Flo took Betsy and I for a ride in evening.

Sunday. We did not get going to the beach until nearly noon. Betsy helped me with 3 loads of wash. It is quite a job to dry fold etc. Flo went to the beach with us and we had spaghetti dinner with all together at night – 12. The children went for a ride with Alice and Elizabeth. The view of San Diego the ocean with lights is a perfect fairyland.

Monday. Flo left for work about 7:30 and afterward we got started but with a bit of error in navigation didn’t reach Marineland – went of Los Angeles ‘til after noon. I enjoyed the performing whales. I did not think the sharks performed as well as those in Florida (these came by plane from Florida).

The seals were quite ordinary. The cutest act of the sharks was pulling a dog in a row boat. The exhibits of fish were excellent. I have never seen so many and beautiful sea anemones but the children didn’t even see them. There was living coral too.

​​​​​​Sidebar from Dick Eaton, a recollection of his trip at age 10

One highlight of our trip happened on the day before we spent a hill day at Disneyland in California. We passed through the entire width of southern California after visits to Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde, Las Vegas, the Hoover dam, Bryce Canyon, Zion Canyon and Carlsbad Caverns during the previous weeks. This part of California was very dry with nothing green, We finally stopped at a county customs inspection station for Orange County, where they took away any fruit.

Now we saw vegetation, and we arrived at the Travelodge motel about a half mile from Disneyland (opened eight years earlier in 1955). They had a swimming pool, and that is where Chuck and I met a Mexican family after lunch.

The Mexicans had recently been to a bullfight, and they now had plans to spend some time at Disneyland. Our family had plans to spend the entire day at Disneyland the next day. But my 13-year-old brother Chuck came up with a great proposal for our mother. Could he and I go down to Disneyland that afternoon and check it out before our day the next day? Mother was taking Betsy to Knott’s Berry Farm, while Jane arid Susan would rest at the motel. We got permission to head out on our own and left at 4 p.m. only to return at 10:45!

To our surprise, it cost $1.20 for admission for people over 12 years old and 60 cents for children under 12. We hesitated to pay the $1.80 expense of our  silver coins, but we did. The next day, mother would buy the A<B<C<D<E tickets that would admit us to the different rides. We simply wanted to scout things out.

And scout we did. After a walk down Main Street past the fire station where Walt Disney allegedly had his second-story office, we then found sections of the park Frontierland, Fantasyland, Tomorrowland and I forget the rest. We went into Frontierland first, and right away two cowboys had a gunfight in front of us. One laid dead on the ground, but we knew he wasn’t and we waited a good minute or two and watched him get up and walk away quietly.

There were wild sounds coming from an island and many types of watercraft were traveling around said island. We spent a long time looking for the bridge to take us across, to no avail. The next day we found out that you needed a “C” ticket to get across on the Tom Sawyer raft.

Some people were leaving and they gave us their unused tickets. We agreed to meet somewhere, as we had to take different rides with the different A-to-E tickets. We were agreed not to buy those tickets until the next day. We did take a trip on the monorail to get an overview of the park, and that trip also stopped at the Disney hotel which was outside the park.

There were free places to visit! The Pepsi Cola cafe had tables and a free live show which was excellent. We got to sit with the Mexican family from the swimming pool. The young waitress got my fair brother, Chuck, to blush, and I believe we all got a chuckle from that. We also went to a circle screen show that showed the USA in 360 degrees. When we decided to leave, it was dark and we went out a different entrance/exit. A policeman was directing traffic and he told Chuck where to find our Travelodge motel with the sleepwalking teddy bear.

Have times changed in 61 years since 1963? We had no cellphones, and 1963 was the year that Greenville changed from a crank telephone to an operator – to a dial phone service.