Sixty years ago, on the morning of July 4, 1966, I woke up after a restless (and mostly sleepless) night in a coach seat on the Santa Fe Chief enroute to Chicago from Oklahoma City, the first leg of one of the greatest adventures of my life.
I was on that train with a dozen other Oklahoma high school students heading to Europe for a six-week itinerary that we had planned ourselves, accompanied by two adult couples who served as group leaders and chaperones. From Chicago we took a Canadian National Railway train to Montreal, then flew to London on a BOAC VC-10 -- my first flight on a jet, and my first trip off the North American continent. I was 16.
After arriving in London, we split into two groups and followed slightly different itineraries until returning to London, then flew back together to Montreal and returned by train to Oklahoma City.
Over the next six weeks, I’ll post some photos and stories from the trip. For today, here’s our group of seven kids and the husband of the adult couple who shepherded us on the trip. (His wife took this photo.) I’m the tall guy with glasses in the back. And for comparison, I'm including a photo of me 58 years later at the same OKC railroad station from which we departed.
All aboard!
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