Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Hitting the highways
I developed my love of travel during the Bicentennial year, 1976, as a 14-year-old on a five-week, 10,000-mile trip west with my family.
While out and about, and wandering around Chester County, I have the opportunity to chat with readers.
They often say their favorite Small Talk columns concern travel.
It’s probably no surprise, those travel stories are the most fun to write. I wish I could hit the road 300 days per year and write about nothing else.
But I’m here to stay. It doesn’t look like I’ll be leaving the current gig anytime soon since no one has yet offered to foot the bill.
I developed my love of travel during the Bicentennial year, 1976, as a 14-year-old on a five-week, 10,000-mile trip west with my family.
We crossed the Mississippi River, made it to the Pacific Ocean, toured a little bit of Mexico and Canada and hit 20 states and 10 national parks.
We spelunked in Wind Cave N.P., rode horses into Bryce Canyon N.P., looked over the edge of the Grand Canyon and summitted too many mountains to mention.
Before vans were popular, we traveled in a green Ford Country Squire station wagon with mock wood paneling from bumper to bumper.
My father did all the driving and my mother sat in the passenger side back seat. To keep it fresh, my brother, sister and I switched seats every two hours.
The “navigator” sat up front with dad and somebody was trapped in the third row, behind luggage in the far back, by the rear window. The sibling sitting next to mom handled the food and drink orders.
We carried a two-gallon Coleman jug of Kool-Aid. My father did not empty the jug. What remained from the previous day was mixed into a new batch. By the end of the trip, the “seasoned” flavor was a delicious five-week concoction.
Amazingly we consumed the most on a hot day in the desert (yes, it’s not all trees) of Washington State and not SoCal or Arizona. Ahh, the memories. The AAA tour books and Trip Tiks were invaluable. We price shopped for budget motels and we almost always found one with a pool where the kids could frolic while the old man and old lady took a well-deserved rest in the room.
We traveled mostly by interstate. My father eventually refused to drive even one more highway listed in the guide book as an “architectural masterpiece,” which meant they were two-lane mountain roads with huge drops offs and often no guardrails.
Although it was scheduled for the trip in 1976, I’ve never visited Rocky Mountain N.P, partly because of my father’s aversion to those nasty roads.
We got off the interstate to drive the straight as an arrow back roads across Kansas and broke the monotony a bit by attending a rodeo in Manhattan, Kansas where my mother sat next to the Marlboro Man.
I’ll never do it again, but in Tijuana we watched as six bulls were slaughtered in anything but a “fair” bull fight.
We paid an extra dol-
lar to sit on the shady side. Rather than drink the water, my parents drank Mexican beer on a sunny afternoon.
We saw Hollywood, bears and moose in Yellowstone and heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake City.
Yes, many will say, why
travel so far and do so much? So much driving. Why not spend a month in Yosemite?
This was the first time and the way I’ve almost always traveled. It’s often said that it’s the journey and not the destination.
Just try to describe someone’s first view of snowcapped Rocky Mountains in July. You gotta travel there.
I love to see the topography change. I now love
racking up the miles while working the GPS rather than the AAA Trip Tik and tour books, but I’m also there to pause and look around. The surprises are still there if you have a little time.
We did do some state bagging, just to say we visited. Michigan was seven miles north of the interstate and made the jaunt just to say we’d been there.
We ate sourdough bread at Fisherman’s Wharf in
San Francisco and threw July snowballs in Crater Lake N.P.
Our car brakes went bad on the hills of San Francisco - where else? We picked up a stone and cracked the windshield in Idaho. Other than that it was smooth sailing.
We saw much. I’ve been back to many of those places we first visited on that long ago trip.
I’d never choose to sit on a beach in the Caribbean or Florida for a week.
I’d rather take a cruise and visit a different country every day. Nevertheless, I can see the allure to a week at the Jersey Shore. To each his own.
I also like to visit the oldest, biggest and first of anything. I like to keep busy. See new things. Collect destinations.
I’ve got itchy feet and enjoy perpetually keeping in motion. Bill Rettew is a weekly columnist and Chester County native. He just loves the sound of wheels spinning. Read his travel book, “Chasing the American Dream,” with a free Kindle download on www.amazon.com. You may contact him at brettew@dailylocal.com.