Musings on Road Trips taken and yet to go.
Almost as important as the cars as I have loved are the road trips through the years. My earliest recollection of road trips are with my parents and my brother. We took a vacation every year by car. Although technically road trips involve multiple days, the one day road trips are also noteworthy.
The family vacations of my childhood were most often camping trips in North Carolina a couple of times even up into Virginia on the Blue Ridge Parkway or trips to Daytona Beach in Florida, sometimes with a stop in St. Augustine.
The camping trips were truly road trips. On the Blue Ridge Parkway, we would stop along the way to take advantage of the hiking and sightseeing. Mama usually packed a picnic basket and a cooler and we ate in roadside parks. I don’t remember a specific car on these trips (I vaguely remember Daddy’s “fine automobile” the ’54 Chevy) but I do remember Crabtree Meadows, Mount Mitchell, Grandfather Mountain and Blowing Rock. We slept in a tent on cots and sleeping bags. Frequently these trips involved extended family including my aunts, uncles, cousins and grandmother.
I liked the trips to Daytona Beach. It was so different from our everyday life. I was always sad to start the trip home. I would refer to it as “going through the mirror.” It was almost like a dream. I do remember specific trips in Big Red, the ‘59 Plymouth Fury. We would get up very early in the morning to leave the house in Suburban Atlanta by 5 am. We were trying to beat the heat. Our first stop was in Macon, Georgia at the Waffle House where we ate breakfast. What a treat! We didn’t eat out for breakfast very often. Then we were back on the road headed south.
This was a time when there were very few interstate highways and we made our way through hot sticky South Georgia. We had all the windows rolled down, no Air Conditioning and literally blew our way to Florida. As we approached small Southern towns, we had to slow down. It was an all day trip and by the time we got there we were all grouchy, hungry and soaked with sweat. Years later my mother would laugh and say “we thought we were having fun!”
I wasn’t a very good traveler; I didn’t like to ride. Mama and Daddy tried to keep me entertained. We always had maps in the car. The paper ones you got from gas stations. The ones that once unfolded were never folded correctly again. I would ride in the backseat and Daddy would designate me as the navigator. I would unfold the map and calculate the distance until the next small town. If you remember, the old paper maps had small numbers in different colors that represented the distances between towns. I learned to add them up and we would check the odometer to see if my calculations were correct. We would also count cars of different colors, identify cars (which may be why I am sometimes better at identifying older cars from the rear) and check license plates.
And then there was the special day that I could drive. Daddy allowed me to drive on trips, even with just a Learner’s Permit. By that time my brother was gone and it was just Mama and Daddy and me. Mama would sometimes ride in the backseat, I would drive and Daddy would sit up front. Then I started to enjoy time on the road. Daddy and I would play “car” games. He would take out his pocket watch tell me to hold my speed and we would check the mile markers. We would then calculate the time and check to see if the speedometer was correctly calibrated. Daddy taught me how to pass on a two lane highway (how to see the headlights of the car I was passing in the rearview mirror before I pulled back over), how to use the side mirrors, figure the mileage and later how to pump gas. My Daddy never put less than a full tank of gas in his cars and figured mileage with every fill up.
In 1989 Bill, Beau and I moved to New Mexico. Brian was in college in Alabama. For the next 11 years there were frequent road trips to Georgia which Beau labeled as the “friendship tour.” These trips were in my ’88 Buick LeSabre and my ’94 (I think) Cadillac Eldorado and one or two in the Red Car (my ’99 Corvette Coupe.) It was a two day trip, going we stopped somewhere East of Dallas. Sometimes on the return trip we made it past Dallas the first day. The Buick was a true road trip car, comfortable, well powered and easy to drive. The Eldorado was fun to drive and FAST, but it always rattled. It struck me as odd that a car that was supposed to be a luxury car was so noisy!
The Corvette was fun to drive on Road trips, but on busy Interstate Highways (like I-20 and I-40) I didn’t like driving the ‘Vette with all the trucks. It was much more fun on a less traveled highway and back roads.
I have driven over Monteagle, Monarch Pass in the snow and Raton Pass. I have crossed the Mississippi River in Vicksburg and in Memphis, seen large wind farms in the west and driven over Hoover Dam.
There were many road trips including Roswell to Memphis, Chattanooga and Orlando, from Colorado Springs in the Red Car to Mt. Rushmore to Telluride and to Phoenix and from Phoenix as co-driver to Monterrey in Patrick’s Grand Sport, to San Diego in the Jeep and to Colorado Springs again in the Grand Sport, the scenic route.
After I moved to Colorado, I bought my 2005 Jeep Liberty which I still have. Many memorable road trips in “Heap.” Including a planned two day return trip from visiting my parents for Christmas in Acworth, Georgia to Colorado Springs which turned into five days. My friend, Linda S (she had ridden with me to Conway, Arkansas to visit her family for Christmas), Muttley J Dawg and I were trying to outrun a blizzard and we didn’t make it.
A special shout out and thanks to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol for rescuing Linda S and I and leading us to Boise City, to the people of Boise City for providing shelter and soup and coffee at the Church, to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol who lead us out of Boise City in a caravan on closed roads, when power, water and gas were gone; to the Officer organizing the caravanfrom Boise City to Guyman, who put Linda, Me and Muttley J Dawg right behind him because we were the only two women travelling alone, to the Hotel Clerk in Liberal, Kansas who called around and found us the next to last Motel room, to Corvette Friends who let us spend New Year’s Eve with them in Lakin, Kansas when the roads closed again.
On other road trips, thanks to the Waffle House in Jackson, MS for being open on Christmas Day, to the Clerk at the Convenience Store/Gas Station outside Tupelo, who made a fresh pot of Coffee for me and Muttley J Dawg when we stopped to gas up on a cold rainy Christmas Eve and to the Sheriff in Ridgeway, Colorado who saw me looking at a map and stopped to help. A smile remembering the kids (probably about eight years old) in Romeroville, New Mexico who had never seen a Corvette when Muttley J Dawg, Stubbi the travelling cat and I stopped for gas. They asked very politely if they could look at my beautiful car and I asked if they wanted to sit in it. By the time, I had gassed up, walked the dog and cat and gotten a snack, there was a crowd gathered and they wished us well and waved as we left.
A special thanks to my friends and family who have participated in road trips over the years.
There are still two road trips I want to make – Miami to Key West (which Patrick and I had planned for this fall until COVID) and the Pacific Coast Highway. I hope that soon I will be out on the road again, with the music blaring and seeing places I have never seen and meeting people along the way. Not ready to park it just yet.
If you hear Gladys Knight “Midnight Train to Georgia”, Canned Heat “Going up the Country”, Rascal Flats “I’m Movin’ On”, Charlie Daniels “Uneasy Rider”, Prince “Little Red Corvette”, Alabama “Christmas in Dixie”, Little Feat “Willin’”or Johnny Cash “Folsom Prison Blues” blasting as you pass a car, slow down and look, it might be me.
It’s been a Helluva Ride (Drive)!
Love and Peace,
Linda
Musings of This Old Girl 