"Love to travel, not enough money" Dymphna1's Profile

I was 5 months old and we were tent camping with my grandparents up on the Rose Bud in Montana. This is in the Beartooth Mountains of the south central part of the state. It was May, and it was so cold that my Mom says she had to break the ice that formed over the water bucket the next morning. But she could not keep me out of the streams. Please note that this was long before disposable diapers too. LOL

I want to start camping again. I have so many fond memories of my youth out camping. 10 years of Girl Scouts also help to foster this.

Grandpa Wood at his bench

My Grandpa Wood was in inventor. He had the greatest toys for camping. He had taken a Dodge van and made it into a camper. It had two separate transmissions and an over drive, so he could take it up hills it wasn't supposed to go up. (He was really bad about deciding to just go joy riding through someone's field without permission to see what was there.) He had the fishing poles up along the top of the van, a camp stove in the van, which my grandmother could do jellies on in the middle of no where.

Then on the top there was a canoe. Not just any canoe, but a jet powered canoe he had modified. It sucked water up from the bottom and shot it out the sides. It could go up rivers where no other boats could go. The park service in Texas begged him to sell it, as it was the only boat they ever saw that could go up the stream without having to use paddles to push along the walls of the canyon where they had to check.

Thanks to my grandparents tenacity and ingenuity I have an income today. He invented a vacuumcup that is used in the glass industry today. He invented it, marketed it, and built the machines to mass produce it. The banks laughed at him when he went for a loan to start up shop. So he went out and sold stock to friends and family. The company is called Wood's Powr-Grip Co., Inc.

My father originally did not go into business with his dad. He was in the Army to begin with as a photographer. Then he became a reporter, which is how he met Mom. He was working as reporter/editor/you name it at the Herald News in Wolf Point, MT. He would go over to get the scores for the High School games, so he could catch a look at her in her shorts. He knew who she was, but it was a blind date for her when they actually first met.

We moved around from paper to paper as things went. Christmas of 1969 we were in Boise, ID and Dad was the editor for the outdoor section of the Idaho Statesman when my grandparents came for the holiday. Actually Grandpa had come to ask his son to help him with the business, as it had grown to more than he could handle alone. So in March of 1970 we moved to Wolf Point, MT (NE corner of the state) to help him out.

Every summer we would load up into a pickup camper and go, all seven of us. My folks had taken the back window out of the cab & window to the camper and put a booth in, so we could crawl between and be legal. I don't know how they ever considered those vacations! 5 kids in a camper with, "Mom! Bryan's picking on me." "Mom, Bryan & Brad are fighting again." "Mom, they won't let me look out the window." "Mom, I'm sick." "Mom it is my turn to sit up front!" (Note: It was never Dad, because he was driving.) And about the time we would all fall asleep Dad would look at Mom and say, "You know, I am feeling sleepy, would you like to drive for a while?"

We went all over in that old camper, often pulling a tent trailer so we would have enough beds. We did Canada, all over Montana, and one trip that we went for a month all the way to California. Going down Highway #1 on the bunk of a camper is no different from riding a roller coaster! It was sooo much fun.

I wish I had pictures of that time, but they are all at my parent's house and have never been scanned.

Cleat www.vacuummounts.com

I have so many memories of developing pictures with my dad in the darkroom he had created in the basement. He loved to take the black & white photos. But he had an idea to make a tripod using the vacuumcups we were making for glass handling. So in the early 80's he developed a 4.5" & a 6" cup. We have them today. With our other products.

Want to see something cool, look at out videos and you will see one being used on the side of a helicopter in Iraq. The guys said they like the vacuum better because it acts as a shock absorber so the camera does not rattle apart like with the hard mounts. We sent them a bunch of them n/c.

So if I talk about them on the boards, it is because I have a right to be proud of what we have done.

table cloth

I did this tablecloth for my Daughter-In-Law. I do love to embroider and x-stitch

This one is for my granddaughter. I have done 10 socks over the years.