There were four kids in my family and lots of vacations were spent camping out at state parks around the state, although my parents wouldn't go very far south; we spent time up at Ft. Clinch, or over to Santa Rosa in Pensacola, St. Andrews in Panama City, or down to Manatee State Park near the Gulf. Back then you could get in the water and swim with the manatees. Not many fast food chains around then, but we'd stop at the local drive in and try to tell Daddy what we wanted. He'd always say, "just stop, you're ALL getting the same damn thing", two burgers, one fry, and a Coke.
To this day, when we get together with all of our families, one of us will say "oh look, we're having the same damn thing" even if it's Thanksgiving.
My Dad's best friend owned the old FRM Feed store in Madison and he and his family lived twelve miles out of town down a red clay road in a huge old farmhouse full of old furniture and closets that still had clothing from the turn of the century and boxes of letters and postcards going back to 1896. Had a blast dressing up in those old things. Went barefoot, killed at least one snake every day and didn't tell our parents. Had to use Lava soap to get the dirt and wild blackberry stains off in a claw foot tub. Every kid should have some of these experiences. I'm sort of sad mine didn't.
Mom was big on taking us to all the historic sites and museums, too. My parents loved driving through Tally with the "hills" and making sure we went into the Capitol. I think it's one of the reasons I loved Tally and knew I wanted to spend four years there. It was just a pretty little town back then. Florida had less than half as many people back then.
