Weekly Geeks 2009-21: More Summer Fun: 06/06/09

This week the Weekly Geeks site wants to know more about how we spend our summertime. There are four questions which I will try to answer.

1. List of school aged favorites for summer reading:

As a kid I spent my summers reading series. The two that jump immediately to mind are:

The Hardy Boys by Franklin W. Dixon

There are dozens of books in the series all written by different ghost writers. I read the 88 or so that my mother had collected during her summer reading a child.

Trixie Belden by Julie Campbell

I read the series just as it was running out but I went back and read the first ten or so.

2. Give us some fun activities to do during the summer.

Go to your local parks and hiking trails. Take along your camera and record your walk. Go home and blog about what you saw! Check out your local zoo (if you have one), botanical garden or perhaps go snarfing. If you live near the beach, go at low tide to see the tide pools. Go swimming! Go camping! Go on a trip by train.

3. Tell us about your vacation spots:

When I wasn't reading, I was either at Camp Winacka up in the Cuyamacas east of San Diego or I was camping with my family. Sometimes we'd camp locally at Green Valley Falls. Sometimes we'd go to Arizona (Yuma, Tucson, the Grand Canyon). Sometimes we'd go to Utah (Bryce Canyon) or Nevada (Vegas). Once we even went to Oregon.

Most of the time though we stayed in California. Places to see in California: Santa Barbara, Lopez Lake, Hearst Castle, The Sacramento Delta, for a ride on the Skunk Train, or Mammoth Lakes.

4. Tell us about a favorite summer memory you have of being a kid (the time you caught the big one, learning to swim, summer camp, etc).

Of all those many trips, some of my favorites were the trips to Lopez Lake. Lopez Lake has beautiful lakeside camping and the world's first water slide. Imagine riding down a water slide in the middle of a mountainous wilderness. It's memorable! Besides the water slides, Lopez Lake has easy to find fossils and great fishing.

weekly geeks

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Comment #1: Saturday, June, 6, 2009 at 18:02:55

uncertainprinciples

I loved Hardy Boys & Trixie Belden as well. However, liked Nancy Drews and The 3 Investigators a tad more.

Also, Lopez Lake sounds phenomenal. I love water slides!

Happy Weekly Geeks =)

Comment #2: Saturday June 6, 2009 at 16:59:55

Pussreboots

I've only read one Nancy Drew mystery and I don't remember much about it except that I didn't like it as much as the other series I was reading. I have a couple Nancy Drews that I plan to read as time permits.

Lopez Lake is the most fun I've ever had camping. I really want to take my family there some day.

Comment #3: Saturday, June, 6, 2009 at 22:02:10

gautami tripathy

I used to gobble up all the Nancy Drews and Hardy Boys. But I haveen't read any by ghost writers. I hadn't heard of Trixie Belden until now. I will check it out. In India, we were more inclined towards Enid Blytons.

I will do the task you set me!

Thanks!

Comment #4: Saturday June 6, 2009 at 21:28:01

All of the Hardy Boys books were written by ghost writers. There isn't a Franklin W. Dixon. He's made up of a collective of different writers.

I hadn't heard of Enid Blyton until I was an adult. I've read some of her books thanks to BookCrossers in the UK.

I look forward to the photographs you post!

Comment #5: Saturday, June, 6, 2009 at 22:29:18

Maree

I've spent a lot of summer holidays reading, too. Spent one summer just reading The Dark is Rising sequence.

Happy Weekly Geeks :)

Comment #6: Saturday, June 6, 2009 at 21:32:21

Pussreboots

My husband has fond summer memories of reading The Dark is Rising series. I'm slowly making my way through it as time permits.

Comment #7: Sunday, June, 7, 2009 at 03:24:01

Jeff Larche

My favorite "juvenile mystery" series was a riff on the Hardy Boys. It was the Brains Benton mysteries.

"Brains" was, of course, a boy genius. His sidekick Johnny was a normal kid ... often quite a dufus, as I recall. I devoured the books, but not in a boy genius kind of way. More in a dufus/probably-mildly-dyslexic kind of way. The books were mysteriously tossed shortly after high school. (Had I been Brains, I wouldn't have slept until I got to the bottom of the case. Instead, it remains unsolved.)

Of course, when I came across one of the books years ago, in a used book store, I was astonished by how simplistically they were written and how much the plot resembled every single TV detective show episode of the time.

Brains Benton.

Comment #8: Sunday, June 7, 2009 at 10:00:10

Pussreboots

Thank you for the info. I love reading old books. I will have to track them down once I clear out my current TBR pile.

Comment #9: Sunday, June, 7, 2009 at 07:26:30

uncertainprinciples

there isn't a Carolyn Keene either. For the longest time, the same person wrote both: Nancy Drew & Hardy Boys. Not sure what happened with the case files though.

Comment #10: Sunday June 7, 2009 at 10:04:03

Pussreboots

Both the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew series were created by Edward Stratemeyer as were the pseudonyms of Franklin W Dixon and Carolyn Keene. I have heard that his daughter, Harriet, was the creative spark behind many of the series though to what degree, I'm not sure.

Comment #11: Sunday, June, 7, 2009 at 11:26:16

Louise

Since I am in Denmark and didn't read in English before I was grown up, there are many YA-series I don't know about. But I did read Nancy Drew, mentioned in the comment above ;) And loved it. Haven't read one in years, though.

I also have a post up about California :)

Comment #12: Sunday June 7, 2009 at 10:09:01

Pussreboots

There are many series I missed out on as a kid. I'm reading them some of them now as an adult.

I'm heading over to your post about California.

Comment #13: Sunday, June, 7, 2009 at 12:00:55

Rikki

Oh, I read Trixie Belden, too. Loved that one. Happy Sunday!

Comment #14: Sunday June 7, 2009 at 10:16:55

Pussreboots

Trixie just captured my imagination more than Nancy Drew did but I seemed to be the only kid reading them at my school.

Comment #15: Sunday, June, 7, 2009 at 14:03:36

Chris@bookarama

I'm so impressed that you did all 4!

That's a great reading list. I love going hiking. I have to do more of that this year.

Comment #16: Sunday June 7, 2009 at 16:06:03

Pussreboots

It took me all morning to do all 4 in between chores and errands but I had fun answering them.