Mary's Genealogy Blog: Oregon Sea Lion Caves & Other Travel Adventures

Last week Doug and I were up in Oregon. Our plans included driving down part of the Oregon Coast where the “Sea Lion Caves” are located. I’d heard Doug talk about visiting them when he was a child. They are one of those types of places that most children long to visit after seeing signs along the highway on a long road trip. For me, that place was “Rock City”, in Georgia, on the long rides south from Kentucky. I don’t think I ever mentioned to my parents that I wanted to stop there, knowing they would nix the idea. I hated the long road trips with only “potty breaks.” I never saw Rock City and probably didn’t miss much. But, here was an opportunity to see the Oregon “Sea Lion Caves.” Doug had recalled, many times, his one childhood visit there, climbing down the endless steps (before the elevator was installed) into the giant cave filled with barking (and smelly) sea lions. Oddly, I wanted to share this childhood adventure with him.

We pulled off the narrow coast road perched high on the cliffs and into the cramped parking lot of the commercially operated “Sea Lion Caves.” I was excited. We headed into the gift shop to buy our tickets. The shop was filled with everything from salt-water taffy and shellacked wooden boxes to mood rings and T-shirts. At the ticket counter the man was explaining to a group ahead of us that there weren’t actually any sea lions in the sea lion caves that day but…… you could still pay $6 to take the elevator down into the cave and see where they would be if they were around. He was trying to be bluntly honest about the situation, delivering the news straight out with no apology. By the time we walked up to the ticket counter a different employee was there, a lady who tried to deliver the news about the missing sea lions in a more sugar coated story like manner. “The sea lions have chosen to go out and play in the ocean today.” Doug asked me if I still wanted to go. I said “yes.” I had to follow this adventure wherever it led. Somehow it just seemed part of the whole odd experience that there were no sea lions at the sea lion caves. It was worth it, because the views from the outdoor walkways down to the elevator were in fact spectacular. Down in the large sea cave we saw where the sea lions would have been, one sign even pointed out rock formations that were supposedly shaped liked Abraham Lincoln’s head or an Indian princess, which just seemed to fit into the whole kitschy experience.

The Sea Lion Cave visit got me to thinking about family road trips and trips my ancestors had taken. In the summer of 1936 my father, twelve at the time, took a long road trip out west with his grandparents, Clarence and Maude Merriman. I don’t know every place they stopped or the exact route they took. I have a picture of them at Pike’s Peak in Colorado and I know that they also went to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. I think about how long that road trip that must have taken back then. His grandfather did all the driving, stopping at small churches or schoolyards in the afternoon, where Dad could play on the playground and granddad Clarence could take a nap. All three of them carried a $100 bill in their shoe for emergencies and safekeeping. This was before ATM’s and probably even travelers checks, so it was a way Clarence had devised for them to safely carry some of the money needed for the trip. This was still during the Depression and you didn’t take risks with money. At the Grand Canyon, Dad was allowed to hike partway down the Bright Angel Trail. His grandparents, in their mid 60’s by then, stayed up top and watched him as he wound down the steep trail. After a while, and with a bit of concern about young Jack, they paid a bit of money to an Indian vendor to look through a telescope and try to spot their grandson. With the Indian’s help they spotted Dad at one of the resting spots along the trail. He was sprawled, asleep, on top of a picnic table……with his shoes off. This caused quite a bit of alarm with his grandparents, due to the concern about the $100 bill. A hundred dollars in 1937 is worth about $1400 in today’s money. When he returned back to the top of the canyon rim, the grandparents were much relieved to find that he still had possession of the $100.

Dad’s grandfather, Clarence Merriman, must have been a believer in the value of travel experiences. He was able to give both his two daughters the adventure of world travel. I’m not sure exactly the extent of their travels but I found his daughter, Avery (my grandmother) on a ship passenger list from Liverpool to Montreal in 1922. She would have been 21 and still a single woman. Her younger sister, Lillian, is on a passenger list from 1925, sailing on the “Aquitania” from England to New York. Lillian was 21 years old at that time, so perhaps Clarence had a policy of sending each girl on a travel adventure at that age, before they married. I do recall my great aunt Lillian mentioning that her father had sent her on a trip around the world, and I think she mentioned visiting India and Egypt. It is likely that these ocean voyages that I’ve found records for were only parts of much longer trips made by each girl.

Another adventure was a trip to Hawaii my other grandmother (Emma) and her older sister (Helen) took in 1924/1925. The girls were sent on this trip so they could visit their grandmother Fairleigh, who was living with her daughter and son in law, Addie and John McCulloch. John McCulloch, an Army man, was stationed in Honolulu. The girls traveled by train to California and from there took a ship to Hawaii. Can you imagine what a trip that must have been for two girls from Louisville, Kentucky, who were only 18 and 19 at the time? They are listed on the passenger list of the ship “S. S. Maui” that sailed from Honolulu to San Francisco in February of 1925, their return trip. Perhaps they began the trip in late 1924 and spent the Christmas holidays in Hawaii. I’ve heard hints that my grandmother even had a shipboard romance on the ocean voyage, but no one seems to know any juicy details. Both girls married not long after returning from this trip to Hawaii. Emma, my grandmother, married Tom, the boy next door. Helen married Rob, a farmer from the country. I imagine that, over the years, they both must have looked back on the Hawaii trip as their last bit of freedom, adventure, and luxury before becoming young brides and mothers during the Great Depression years from 1929 to 1941.

This summer my nephew, Daniel (age 25), is traveling through Asia with his girlfriend. They don’t have much money, so it is definitely an experiment in traveling on a shoestring. It sounds fun, but I know I’m too old for that type of travel. I need a few luxuries these days. I get email updates from him occasionally, allowing me to taste a bit of his experiences and adventures.

Whether it is exotic, ordinary, or kitschy (like the Sea Lion Caves), getting out of our routine and jumping out into the world is, I believe, important and good for us.

"One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things." –- Henry Miller

-Mary