'57 Chevy Redux

I don't mean to repeat myself here in this blog, but I could not resist this photograph. Last week's Vintage Photo Friday picture of my father's 1957 yellow Chevy was in black & white. I just found this picture of the same car in full-on color, towing our matching yellow E-Z Camper trailer.

The E-Z Camper opened up and looked like a tent on the base of the trailer. Each side "wing" was about the size of a double bed, my mom and dad slept on one side and my sister Cathy and I slept on the other, in sleeping bags. You can see a propane tank installed near the hitch (above) that was hooked up to a Coleman stove inside the trailer, making it convenient for my mother to, after adding water, cook up the powdered eggs for breakfast in the morning.

My parents just loved to "camp". I hated camping because, with our family, what it really meant was driving from early morning into the night until my father could no longer keep his eyes open and/or until we reached our destination. Both of my parents smoked Pall Malls, in the car, with us in the back seat. It used to make my stomach turn. My sister Cathy and I were bored, carsick and busy telling on each other if one of us crossed the invisible line in the backseat and "accidentally" touched the other. "Quit it!" "No YOU quit it!" When our bickering got out of control, my dad would say, "Don't make me stop this car!" Hmmmm. Go ahead, Dad, stop somewhere - anywhere!

Here on the left, two years later, is the dreaded 1959 blue Chevy station wagon with matching blue E-Z Camper. No doubt about it, my dad was a stylin' Chevy man.

When my grandparents moved to Phoenix, AZ in 1960, their home became our annual destination for the Christmas holidays. It was bitter-sweet. I loved my grandparents and loved to visit with them; I just hated the method of transportation. I saw a lot of America whizzing by us as we traveled from Grayslake, IL along Route 66 to Phoenix, year after year, smokin' the entire way. "See the USA in your Chevrolet...."