We left Stanleyville [now Kisangani] on 10 June 1955 on a Sabena DC-6. After a brief stop in sweltering Khartum, we arrived in Cairo at 2 am the next day but it was not until 4 am that we bedded down in the Continental-Savoy Hotel. Later that day, we hired a dragoman to take us on a tour: the Giza pyramids where both Tom and Liz rode camels; the Sphinx; the Cairo Museum where we saw Tut’s treasures (that Tom was to see again, years later); and of course the Moski where our guide permitted us to enter only those shops where he received commissions on our purchases (and he must have been disappointed because we bought nothing).
We continued sight-seeing on 12 June until we left Cairo at 6 pm on TWA for Rome, where we arrived on the 13th and stayed at the Albergo Boston. On the 16th we went to Milano by train where we spent the night. The next day, we trained to Interlaken, Switzerland, and took a cog-train to Grindelwald. That small city was a delight for all of us: among other things, we took a cog-train high up the Jungfrauhoch where Tom and I went skiing in the Swiss Alps.
On 24 June, we cogged back to Interlaken and trained to Zürich. The next day we trained to Innsbruck, Austria, via the country of Liechtenstein [yes, Tom and Liz: you have both been in Liechtenstein!]. We then bussed to the lovely town of Igls, and considering that we paid US$11.00 a day for all 4 of us at the (then) new Hotel Agidihoff, we stayed a few days!
29 June: back to Innsbruck, and by train to Munich, Germany, where we visited the finest museum that I’ve ever seen, and where I took Tom for a beer in the famed Hoffbrauhaus where Adolph Hitler had made one of his seminal speeches in the 1920s.
1 July: we took a train to Mainz and spent the night. The next day we boarded a river boat for a delightful trip down the Rhine to Köln, about 120 miles. Then by train to Brussels.
3-9 July, we spent in a pension in Brussels. Unfortunately, Jeanne was ill most of that time, while I “checked out” with Belgian authorities.
10 July, by train to Paris, arriving late at night and where we sight-see’d for a couple of days before taking the boat train to Le Havre (13 July) where we boarded the SS NIEUW AMSTERDAM (where we had two adjoining 1st-class cabins) for New York.
We debarked in New York on 20 July, and trained to Washington DC to stay in the Prince Karl Hotel. I was occupied with “checking out” of my foreign assignment with the USBR and “checking in” with my next job. But there was a complication: Dr. Bill Gardner, my “big boss” back in California wanted me to work for him in Sacramento, and I had agreed; however, my Fresno/Visalia boss Jack Frink wanted me to join him on a USBR team in Turkey. I took Gardner’s offer because I had already committed myself to it.
On 26 July we flew from Washington DC to Santa Fe to spend nearly a week with Unc Howie and his wife Louanne in Chupadero, NM, and then on to Monterey via LA on 1 August 1955. After about 3 weeks of vacation, I drove to Sacramento to work for Garner.
I moved to Sacramento to work with the USBR in late August 1955 and my family joined me after a week or so. We had a small house at 5977 North Haven Drive, North Highlands, CA (a suburb of Sacramento). Tom and Liz attended nearby schools, but none of us cared for our area, nor did I care for my job. We all looked forward to Turkey because we had been bitten by the “romance” of a foreign assignment and because I had a firm offer to join the USBR team in Ankara as soon as I could be released from Sacramento. That time finally came after ten months.
Two memories of North Highlands:
In the Congo, Tom had learned a fair amount of French and he took a class in that subject in his nearby school in North Highlands where he was in the 8th grade. One day, the teacher was drilling the students in numbers, have them count a few aloud (un, deux, trois..) and then letting another student continue. Finally it was Tom’s turn: “..soixante dix-huit, soixante dix-neuf, octant..” “Stop!” she called, “..that’s not French! You studied in Switzerland, didn’t you?” She did not know that the Belgians also used “octant” but anyway, Tom had given himself away.
I became interested in coins and found that valuable ones (particularly nickels) were still in circulation in those days. I frequently exchanged my pay checks for pounds of nickels and then spent several evenings at home going through them and extracting the goodies. The remainders went to Jeanne for shopping. This must have been a big nuisance for her and she put up with it to please me. Finally the manager of the grocery store where she did most of her shopping complained. He would accept batches of nickels but he wanted them rolled. I soon found that rolling was such a chore that I quickly stopped this practice.
I still have the nickels!