Don't Make Me Pull Over by Richard Ratay

Source of book: Borrowed from my brother.

There was definitely a golden age for American road trips - that magical period between the road building of the postwar period, and the advent of affordable air travel. It was during this time that the Interstate Highway system was built (despite massive cost overruns), kitschy roadside motels and tourist traps popped up, and the station wagon reigned as the family car. This book combines personal anecdote and history to tell a story of this era.

My own childhood was filled with road trips, and, like the author, I have some really great memories as a result. Technically, I was born a bit late for the heyday of the American road trip. But, a few factors combined to make our family a bit of an outlier. First, we were never all that rich. This meant that air travel was out of the question except for the occasional funeral or work-related thing for my dad, at least until my late teens. (I was nearly 17 the first time our family all boarded a commercial airplane together.) Second, my dad always loved road trips. He loved driving, and the fun of planning a route, and the thrill of discovering things along the way. I inherited all of these traits.

Some of my earliest vacation memories are of us packing up in the early morning and driving from Los Angeles to Oakland, where my maternal grandparents lived. This was, for a number of years, our most common trip. But there were others. I remember driving to Lake Shasta for a week of houseboating. Or the first time we visited the Grand Canyon. Or those two extended family reunions in Montana - those may still be the longest road trips I have taken. Whatever the case, I remember sitting in between my parents in the front seat, with map in hand. (I have always been good with maps - and navigation. I can still draw the Los Angeles freeway system from memory, and could probably list the major streets for the San Fernando Valley where I grew up.) I remember seedy hotels. And much nicer ones. I ate at more Denny’s then I can count - there weren’t a lot of other options in most towns other than fast food. I know what Las Vegas feels like when it is 117 degrees. I still have postcards from around the western US. And I have a lot of good memories.

It turns out that I am raising my kids the same way. We have done a number of epic road trips as a family. In addition, however, the kids and I have made camping road trips a regular thing for the last five years. Amanda isn’t a camper, and isn’t as much into the various national parks as I am, but she doesn’t mind us going out and seeing the wilderness without her. Regular readers of the blog will notice that we listen to a lot of audiobooks. Early in my towing experience, we discovered that while music is good, audiobooks are even better at keeping me focused and reducing the fatigue of driving. Also, it keeps the kids entertained. To be fair, this is one way we have broken with the tradition of using games and such to occupy kids in the car (although Amanda will bring along Mad Libs when she joins us.)

With this background in mind, I found this book to be a fun read. Ratay was the youngest in a family of six, so he had kind of a unique take on the experience. The book tells a lot of his own story, but it also has plenty of actual history and interesting relevant facts. These range from a discussion of the Interstate system and how it was built, Howard Johnson and chain restaurants (before Denny’s, even!), Holiday Inn and Ramada and their rivalry, car safety, speed traps, tourist traps, and more. By the mid to late 1980s, when we took most of our trips, much of the iconic kitsch of, say, Route 66 was already on the decline and fading from view - although seeing it last year was kind of sad - so much has closed or crumbled to dust even since I was a kid. We were clearly past the prime of road tripping even then, and my kids probably will grow up knowing our family was a bit weird. I hope they at least have some fun memories of our travels.

Anyone who has spent a lot of time in a car with family should appreciate this book. It is a quick, light read, but it does have interesting history and amusing personal stories. It is worth picking up at the library, if you can find it.