Road Trips
Pics links
Road trips, I love road trips.
Here are only a few stories of road trip odysseys.
We drove across the country when I was 5. Read about it on page 3
The part about St. Louis is an important part of me.
A few memories from that trip.
We went to New York, and we stayed at a hotel in Manhattan. While the family slept I spent a long time looking at the Empire State building from the hotel window. At the corner was a bodega, and they had a statue of the Planters Peanuts Man, which was my height. It must’ve scared the hell out of me because it gave me nightmares for years.
I vividly remember this marquee. I’m surprised I found this photo. I saw the movie a couple of years ago. Not very good.
I remember going to Yellowstone. We watched a mama bear with her cubs. One of them wanted to get up on the road and the mama bear kept pulling it back. Finally she got tired of pulling it back and swatted it very hard away from the road. My mother said that was a very good idea. I identified with the cub
We camped in a tent in Yellowstone. We heard a lot of noise outside at night, but we didn’t look to see what was going on. All the food that we left on the picnic table was gone in the morning.
I think that trip started us, it started my dad and me, on a great love of driving and road trips.
After my dad got a taste of Mexico in our months in Tijuana it made him want to move to Mexico. And every summer vacation, and occasionally in the winter, we would drive down. A couple of times just for a couple of weeks, but often for the entire summer. We would always include Mexico City. My dad found a nice modern little hotel where we always stayed, and he found favorite places to eat. We drove down to the end of Baja California a few times and took the ferry across. We went as far east as Veracruz.
See the story of our first trip to Mexico here
Late at night driving alone in northern California a bit north of the town of Weed, I came across a long line of stopped cars. After a bit of a wait, a few of us got out of our cars and started walking to see what was going on. We went about half a mile walking past other people just sitting there in their cars. Then, in a dip between two hills, we saw what happened. Two logging trucks had hit head on. There was half a dead deer squished between the bumpers of the smoldering trucks. The engine of one truck kept going well past the wreck. Both of the drivers were burned to death. Both of the trucks crushed by logs. There was nothing we could do. As we walked back, we informed the drivers that there was no way they could pass the problem up ahead and that they should turn around, which they did.
My friend Ruben liked telling this story about me. Three or 4 of us decided late one night to drive to San Francisco. We stopped off at a market and got munchies for dinner, and I got myself a box of Quaker 100% Natural Cereal, which was kind of like granola, to munch on while driving. Because of my minimal sleeping needs, I drove all the way up overnight. Somewhere on the road, at sunrise, we stopped at a Denny’s. My friends needed breakfast. I took in my box of cereal and ordered a glass of milk and a bowl. My friends thought this was hilarious, and other very proper people in the place thought it was scandalous. There was a loud, unpleasant, republican type old man across the aisle from us and he was complaining loudly how he needed another cup of coffee, Where was the waitress. His voice made me very tired. So I got up, went to the serving station and got the pot of coffee and went to him and poured. His wife thought it was funny, he didn’t, and my friends thought I was very weird.
By the way, the waitress thought the cereal bowl idea was great.
Because most of our kids chose to live, work, or go to school in the Bay Area. Sarah and I drove back-and-forth many times over the years. The drive was fun, and San Francisco is fun with Sarah.
We decided to pack up the kids and drive out to visit my tia Josie in El Paso, and to see Carlsbad Caverns. We got to the caverns at sunset just as the millions of bats were leaving the cave. The next day we went down into the cavern. Then the next day we visited my aunt and my cousins. I actually hadn’t seen them in a while. They made me so happy. They’re all gone now. I miss them so much.
Once we were empty nesters, we began a road trip pattern. We would explore the West Coast, the central valley, the coast, the mountains, all the way up to Portland as far east as Yellowstone. Then the next year we would fly out to the East Coast and visit relatives and do some exploration. As far north as Maine, as far south as Washington DC, and a state westward. The AAA maps designated some roads as Scenic Byways. Finding those roads, on both east and west road trips, was amazing and beautiful.
Here is an adventure driving the entire west coast of the US
@ And I don’t want to leave out two trips to Oberlin, Ohio where Frannie went to college. Both great trips. @? Frannie in kids@. Ray Charles
I hope we get in a few more trips before we reach the end of the road.