November 23, 1967: Mountains of shopping

Letter postmarked November 30, 1967 (Part 1):

The CCZCC now stands at 5.

You may recall from the November 21 letter that we were planning to take a trip to San Francisco for Thanksgiving. Since Mom's next letter was postmarked November 30 and is somewhat long and covers the whole trip, I have decided to break it up into parts. Here's part 1, covering Thanksgiving Day.

Dear Mother and Mike,

I feel like it's been a long time since I have written to you. I was very busy right before we went to San Francisco for Thanksgiving. I had to get David Wayne some clothes as he had only one pair of pants and no decent shirts.

[Hopefully I got some shirts that cover my belly.]

Also, I needed a winter "dress-up" dress for going out on the town. We were gone Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Since I have been back, I've been busy - Monday I went shopping at Century Plaza with Barbara Hansen, Tuesday I went shopping with Suzie Dirr, and this afternoon Suzie and I are going to take David Wayne and see "The Sound of Music." No telling when I'll get this letter finished, but at least I'll begin now.

First, I'll begin on our trip to San Francisco. It took us 7-1/2 hours to get there, but it was a pleasant trip.

[Google Maps says it's about a 5-1/2 hour drive from L. A. to San Francisco now. Chances are we had to stop several times for bathroom breaks for both me and Mom.]

David Wayne got to see mountains with snow on top. We did run into a heavy fog, but other than that it was a nice drive. I'll admit I got very tired and uncomfortable. When we got to "Clip's" house we were met with a big Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings.

[As previously noted, "Clip" is what I called Dad's coworker Cliff.]

After eating, David Wayne and Ginger (11 year old stepdaughter) went to a zoo which is right across the street from their house. That night we all went riding around the city - went to Coit Tower, Chinatown, the nightclub strip, the ocean, etc., etc. Cliff really knows his way around that city, but his driving leaves something to be desired - poor Dave sat in the front seat and I thought we would lose him several times. You know, those hills got a lot steeper since I was there with Myrna and Julia. We drove (maybe raced is more descriptive) down Lombard Street, the crookedest street in the world. If Dave survived that, I will not worry about his heart for a long time.

[It sounds like they let me and Ginger go to the zoo by ourselves. I guess they really trusted her to keep little five-year-old me safe. Given my history with the animals at Jungleland, that's a bit of a surprise.]

[So that was a rather full Thanksgiving day that began with a 7-1/2 hour drive. Let's see what the rest of the holiday weekend has in store.]