Mad Hatter Tea Party

Sixty years ago next month I visited Disneyland, during the summer of it's grand opening. Not only did I get to ride on the Mad Hatter Tea Party (cup and saucer ride as seen in the attached picture), I also experienced the first of my many trips across our American West.

One of my father's brothers lived in Las Angeles. My family decided to take a family vacation to visit. Family automobile vacations were very common then. Gasoline must have been at least 17-20 cents a gallon!

Our family vehicle was an early 1950s something Nash. Two notable points about that car. First, as was common for most autos of that vintage, it had no air conditioning. Secondly, my parents had this add on contraption that mounted atop one of the roll up windows. It had a fan blade inside that caught the wind as you drove. It passed the air over a reservoir that held dry ice that allowed cool air to pass into the passenger compartment. I can assure you, that it was of great help for us as we traveled through the deserts of the west.

There was very little of the Interstate Highway system completed back then. We traveled west on the famous old two-lane, with the legendary name of Route 66.

On the way, we had to detour around some areas in Arizona that had experienced flooding. Along the detour we saw the Painted Desert with it's colorful rocks and tall cactus, and also Jerome, Ariz.

The detour road climbed perilously up to a mountainside mining ghost town, called Jerome. At age 6, I can assure you, that the word "ghost" definitely got my attention. As we passed the many vacant buildings, I kept a close and wary eye for any specters.

Once we arrived at my Uncle's home, we visited several vacation spots, besides Disneyland. This was my first time to ever see the ocean. My uncle made me walk out into the waves a few feet, but I was overwhelmed by its' sheer size and power.

One day we went to visit some people in Venice, Calif. Like it's namesake in Italy, this portion of L.A. has lots of canals. Another day we went to Knott's Berry Farm. As a kid, I didn't find it too interesting, but it remains one of the area's great attractions.

Besides our trip to Disneyland, one of my most vivid memories from that trip was Roller Derby. My uncle had a very early model television. I was mesmerized watching the sport of Roller Derby.

Our day trip to Disneyland was fantastic. Besides the Mad Hatter ride, one item that remains very clear to me, was the large rocket that stood near the entrance to the theme park. Rockets were still a novelty in 1955, and it made quite an impression on me.

One note about Disneyland and its founder Walt Disney. A few years later, a cousin of ours visited the theme park. She had contracted polio as a very young girl. She was struggling along with her braces and crutches, when Walt Disney himself suddenly appeared. He got her a wheel chair, and visited with the family. He was delighted to find out that they were from Kansas City, his hometown. Walt Disney remains one of our greatest American success stories.

I have three very clear memories of the trip home to Missouri. We stopped at Carlsbad Caverns. This is the largest cave in the world. We walked down, but rode an elevator back to ground level. At one point, they had everyone sit down. They turned off all the lights, and it was the darkest I can ever remember. One of the guides shined a light on a rock that looked about the size of the Vernon County Court House. He told us that was the last rock to fall in this cavern room. That was quite comforting for all of us to know!

We crossed the border into Mexico at Juarez. Even as a little kid, I realized we were no longer like Dorothy, "in Kansas anymore!" When we re-crossed the border, I remember being very afraid that they wouldn't let us back into the U.S.

One of my favorite spots along the route to California has always been Amarillo, Texas. It takes the best part of a full days driving even today to travel between there and here, but it is a very friendly and convenient place to stop for the night.

The food and the decor in their Route 66 restaurants, made a big impression. Each restaurant had Texas sized breakfasts advertised. In Amarillo back then, you could get a Texas sized steak and egg breakfast for the unbelievable price of 69 cents.

Inside each restaurant, the decor was pure "Texas Western." The waitresses were all dressed in cowgirl outfits, and the walls were lined with huge racks of mounted longhorn heads. Being a cowboy and western devotee as a 50s kid, I thought I had died and gone to heaven!

Once we retuned to Missouri, it seemed as if we had been gone for weeks instead of just a few days. My parents had taken pictures, but we had to wait several days for them to be "developed." No smart phone photos were available back then.

I tried to tell my grandparents about the trip, but at that age, my vocabulary was just not sufficient to convey all the tremendous images stored in my child-sized brain.

It wasn't until just recently, that I saw on television, that this was the 60th anniversary of Disneyland's opening. That's the good thing about these stories, they are now stored in a digital file, so my grandkids can read them. Wonder if Walt would have thought this modern social media age, resembled a "Mad Hatter" world!