When we got to San Fransisco again, we knew we would need a bigger car for cross-US travel. And Patsy was newly pregnant. So we fianced a station wagon, and towed the faithful Morris 1000 across the country toward my new Kansas assignment, via Colorado, Denver, and Colorado Springs.

During 1963 we lived in Army quarters at Fort Leavenworth. Edward was born there in 1963.

After which I was ordered to the Army Staff in the Pentagon. We bought a modest house in Annandale, Virginia, from which I commuted in the Morris to the Pentagon daily, while Patsy used the Station Wagon during the 3 years we were there.

After the Pentagon I was selected to attend the Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, PA during the 1967 academic year. The Morris Minor was with us, having, again, been towed by our  Station wagon.

After the AWC,  I was ordered to the Vietnam War for the 1968 year. Patsy and the three kids, David, Rebecca, and Edward and I, temporarily, moved back into our Annandale home we still owned and had rented out the previous year. Then I was off to Vietnam, while the station wagon and the Morris stayed there. David was still too young - at 15 - to be licenced to drive. The Morris was less used.

When I got back from Vietnam, my orders were to report to Fort Carson, Colorado - just south of Colorado Springs, my original home-of-military record.

Our station wagon was pretty old by then, so I got rid of it and bought a new Chevy Malibu.

David III remembers better than I do what happened with the Morris after that. Here is his description.

"The MM was towed to Ft. Carson with a blue Chevy Malibu using a clunky blue towbar purchased in VA as I remember.  I started driving the MM when I got a drivers license (and after I crunched the brand new Ford station wagon rear fender trying out the new car.   On a trip down towards the Wet Mountain Valley where dad and some of his buddies were looking at real estate land, we kept seeing another Morris Minor about 2 miles north of Penrose, in that long dip along 115.  Dad ended up driving up the driveway and offered $50 for it and was accepted.  So now there were 2 MM's at Ft. Carson, the idea being to pirate parts from one to the other.  The second one was not drivable.  

I ended up driving it for two years to Fountain Valley School.  The day I graduated from FVS, first gear and reverse gave out.  Got very adept at parking it so one could go forward, always, in second gear first.  That did wonders for the clutch which gave up a few months later, into summer 1973 I believe.  Just enough time to register it for license plates into 1974, which old and faded are still on the stored car.

(So that was the end of our Morris Minor, after 15 years and lots of use. We sold it for a song, in 1973. It was spotted occassionally in Colorado Springs. And finally was located in a car junk yard.)

I have seen the two MM's on the east side too.  I went and talked the bloke who swears he was going to restore them, but of course hasn't.  They have been moved from one spot to another the last I saw.  But I have walked to them, opened the hood, and it is them 100%.  Down to the soft top and one off color orange painted fender.  The 1974 plate on the original blue Morris Minor 1000 is the first give away.  

As I recall, dad told me the cars were picked up out of a yard out east in the 70s by the now (2013) current owner."

Picture below is "Dad" (me) standing next to it November 20, 2013