How I Spent My Summer Vacation, 1997

Two radios that I picked up while vacationing in Washington state during August, 1997. The set under my hand is a 1934 Philco Model 60 cathedral. On the table next to it is a small Motorola 5R1 tabletop.

Both of these radios played when I bought them, but the Philco needed some work. You can read a detailed chronicle of its cosmetic and electronic restoration by clicking the link above. The Motorola was almost like new and required little more than a light cleanup.

We took a second vacation later that summer, flying to Minnesota for an action-packed weekend that included two family reunions. Although pressed for time, I did manage to score two more radios on that trip: a Zenith tabletop with an unusual chevron-shaped dial and blond wood cabinet, and a 1939 RCA 94BP1 tube portable.

In case you're wondering, the photo above was taken in the spot where we stayed for a week. No, we didn't sleep in a ruined silo! This is a 200-acre hay farm located on the Olympic Peninsula. The owners rent out the house to folks looking for a quiet place on the water. (The property has waterfront on the Straits of Juan de Fuca.)

The 120-year old house is quite cozy, having been updated over the years, and the land is rented out to a tenant farmer. The outbuildings are no longer in use, and are in various states of disrepair, which explains the tumbledown shed and silo in the background.

Located near the town of Sequim and the Olympic mountain range, this was a fantastic place to bring our two boys for a week. While we did a certain number of standard tourist activities, such as hiking up Hurricane Ridge, we also spent a lot of time simply fooling around on the farm—climbing haystacks, watching the local wildlife, and pretending that we live in a more tranquil world. Here are our sons, Isaac and Peter, in the hayfield next to the house and on the beach at the Dungeness Spit.