Today we are taking a
trip.
Not just
any trip.
A road trip.
Not just any road trip, but the
obligatory road trip of my childhood.
My family was
obsessed with the road trip.
It was a well-oiled machine of efficiency.
There were
basic rules to the family road trip.
These rules are set in stone. Any deviation is
strictly forbidden:
I need to emphasize that you
need to re-read rules #1 and #3. If you are unprepared, it could be disastrous.
Now way back in the 1970s my family had 3 options for our travel vehicle:
Legend:
Vehicle A: Family car. Purple Citroen. Great looking car. Cool inside. Drives approximately 167 miles between break-downs. Looks great sitting on the side of the highway.
Vehicle B: 1969 Pontiac. Car given to my family by relative. Large car. Lots of power. Can sit approximately 12 people comfortably in the bench backseat. Reliable. Gas tank capacity rivals a tanker truck.
Vehicle C: Late 60s “conversion van” that can be borrowed from my grandparents. Has a full kitchen and bathroom. Advertised to sleep 5. Actually can sleep one comfortably (and not that comfortably). Down-side is that family has to drive to West coast to pick up vehicle.
Let’s pick Vehicle B!
Now let’s choose a route:
Please make note that
all car routes require around the clock driving. Please note that all arrival times must be between
2 and 5 am because relatives that we were visiting
loved when we, a family of four rolled into their driveway in the middle of the night.
Let’s drive to California!
We aren’t pansy travelers.
We are weathered.
Experienced.
Insane.
So what are we going to eat along the trip?
Howard Johnsons?
Big Boy?
Wall Drug?
Puuuuleeeeease people! We have already
forgotten rules #1 and #3. Eating out requires
a stop of the vehicle. Eating out
costs money. And for your information,
money doesn’t grow on trees.
So mom is going to
pack a cooler:
We are ready to roll!
We have filled our rectangular suitcases full of necessities and dad has placed them with
precision in the trunk with skill that rivals an experienced brick layer.
The trunk is full. So full that a piece of notebook paper placed on the top of the suitcases would cause the trunk to pop open. A few extra things are placed on the floor of the back seat because
children don’t need legroom.
In my family suitcases were
NEVER tied to the roof. My dad would have seen this as a sign to the world of
packing failure. That would be
unacceptable.
Let’s show a little road trip pride!
Even though the backseat measures about 72 feet in width. This is necessary:
Within an hour this will happen:
Tears were the ONLY drink available because of rules #1 and #3. Unlucky was the child who realized pee urgency within the first few hours post fill-up.
Dehydration was the goal.
Who needs drinks when the sandwiches are of the floating variety?
And then this would happen:
To keep the kid’s minds off their full bladders
game mania ensued:
I spy.
The license plate game.
Punch bug.
We were road warriors!
No amount of crying, screaming, bladder explosion or road trip songs would make my dad turn around and head back for home.
Nerves of steel.
We didn’t need a portable DVD player!
We could occupy ourselves the old fashioned way with whining and fighting…
But every once in awhile there was a quiet moment that I wish I could recreate with my own kids:
OK, not exactly
this quiet moment since in the 1970s it was perfectly acceptable for children to lay in the back window of a moving vehicle.
But something
close to this. A moment of complete
road trip bliss when the kids are
quietly listening to dad making up stories about road signs.
A moment filled with family road trip magic.
My favorite story was the ‘Legend of Falling Rock’…
oh good golly! i am laughing soooooo hard right now because our family road trips had the exact same rules! when my mom would start squirming and sweating because SHE needed to pee should would start refilling my dad’s coffee from his thermos as often as possible!
we drove from arkansas to houston (8 hrs) several times a year with no more than ONE stop. and i remember one time right after we got a new minivan that we actually didn’t make a stop because the gas mileage was so great. i think my mom made sure that we never left arkansas on that full of a tank of gas again!
oh and when we were little we had one of those “potty training” potties in the back of the van to use if we absolutely had to pee! yuck! all i can think now is… my poor mom.
and THANK GOD for portable DVD players!!!
We had the station wagon with the back seat that faced backwards. Perfect for getting car sick. But, we ALWAYS made my dad tell the Legend of Falling Rock. As soon as we saw the sign the story began.
We had the giant white station wagon with the wood on this sides, three kids, one LARGE dog who drooled, no A/C, the luggage, and the cooler full of soggy sandwiches.
Back in BS (before seatbelts), my parents would fold the seats back and we’d lie on sleeping bags. Which was good, because it was ALWAYS THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!
Didn’t you or Fred ever figure out that one properly timed bladder explosion would mean stopping and taking a break to clean up the car and soggy kid and most likely time to stretch your legs and get a bite to eat, just so your parents had time to cool off and take a breath? Plus Dad would not would never again call your bluff when you pulled the ‘I have to pee’ alarm.
Are we there yet?
That was WAY more fun than the actual road trips I remember as a kid! = )
we had 3 kids in the back and one (the baby) in the front, sitting between the parents on the bench seat.
critical mass was reached after an hour of having to sit in the middle of the back seat … on the bump. much hair was lost while fighting over who had to sit there.
love the pictures! amazing artwork! we had four kids. and a station wagon that had seats that popped up on each side. usually only one kid got to go back there though. and really got isn’t the best word to use. sitting sideways watching the trees fly by usually made that person carsick. dad was totally stopping when we were throwing up. then we could pee on the side of the road. yeah…not fun at all!
wow…the only difference in your roadtrips and ours was that we had 3 kids in the backseat –same rules though. too funny!
I.Have.No.Words.
Wait. Yes. I do.
I think your husband must be triing to wrestle the markers away from you as my wife is trying to drag me from the computer.
Whatever. They dont get it.
Holly… LOVE THIS POST! And the animation! Girl… I remember road trips like this. Did you guys also play the ABC game? Having to find signs with the letter A… all the way to Z wins! Ha ha… and the NO CHILD SEATS back in the day… I remember sleeping across the back part of my parents car, too! Loved the 70’s! ha ha!
Dot (pan) Ramirez