When I was three years old, my parents and I made a cross-country automobile trip in our brand new 1953 Chevrolet sedan, from the San Francisco Bay Area to the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. Staying on US 40 most of the way, we took a week to make the 3200+ miles, stopping at campsites along the way whenever possible. Because my brother wasn't yet born, I had the back seat to myself, but we carried a lot of luggage and camping gear and there wasn't much room back there, so when it came to sleeping, I would often lie down across my parents' laps, with my head in Daddy's lap and my feet on Mama's. In those days, seatbelts were some newfangled notion that had to be special ordered. But cars were heavier and slower then, so I suppose that compensated just a little for the lack of safety.I have some remarkably clear memories of that cross-country adventure. As we drove through the Nevada desert, my dad told me that were driving through, "...miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles." When we finally stopped at a small gas station, we were all relieved to use the bathrooms. Further
along, in Utah we stopped at a Ute Indian trading post, complete with a lifesize carved wooden cigar-store Indian, a tipi made of elk hides, and totem poles, which I thought were particularly frightening. The plump Indian woman in the post wore turquoise and coral jewelry all over--necklaces, earrings, bands of bracelets covering both forearms, and a concho belt. She looked like an Indian queen to me, and I asked her where her crown was. She smiled and took down a little headband trimmed in fake turquoise decorations and fur, with a feather in the back, then she placed it on my blonde curls. My mom declined to buy it, but relented when I saw a small bakelite doll with braids and a butter-soft deerhide dress. I also got a pair of leather moccasins, which I insisted upon wearing for the rest of the trip.
We also stopped at a campground. I remember the big, brass commemorative plaque and a red water pump...the old fashioned kind with a big cast-iron handle that you had to pump up and down to draw up the water in the well. Under an elm or oak was a picnic table, and just beyond that was a stream that positively sang as the water burbled and rushed over the rocks.Daddy took a walk and came back with a handful of stones. I instantly fell under the spell of the beautiful rocks, and I went right for a gold metallic group of squarish crystals. "Gold!" I said in delight. "No," said my dad with a smile. "This is called fool's gold. It is pyrite and has the same metal in it that your mom is using right now to cook our eggs. He pointed at the number 5 cast iron skillet which had first made a cross-continental voyage in the 1800's, when my mother's grandmother and her family went west on the Oregon Trail. Here it was, going in reverse, only this time on paved highways, not trails through the prairies, mountains and deserts. I was to grow up and cart the very same fry pan all over the U.S. and Europe, and I have it still--a witness to the meanderings of my family for over a century.
After dinner I begged my dad to take me on a rock-hunting expedition of our own, and I came back with my pockets brimming with "pretty rocks." Thus began a rock and mineral collection which has grown considerably over the fifty-plus years since that day. I remember the Spanish movers' amazement that I moved all over the globe with rocks, as they carefully wrapped each piece from the two baskets I kept on the coffee table with my "bright and shinies." And then I handed them a five pounder and the youngest mover said in Spanish, "What is the significance of this?" It was a yellowish stone with a shape that bore an amazing resemblance to the Rock of Gibraltar, and I had picked it up on the beach next to the airport on Gibraltar. "See?" I pointed out to him, "it is Gibraltar." He smiled politely but I heard him whispering later to the older man...something about, "...that crazy North American lady." When he was finished packing the box, he carefully marked it in English, "Fragile. Rocks," and grinned at me. "Where is Spain in your collection?" he asked. I indicated my heart with both hands on my breast. "Aqui...here," I answered. He nodded and smiled, then said, "Me too."But I digress. We drove and drove and I played with my dolls, chatted with Mama and Daddy, listened to the radio, and sang. Daddy knew a ton of songs, but my favorite was, "The Big Rock Candy Mountain." I didn't know until much, much later that it was a song about the hobos and bums who roamed the nation during the depression, looking for work and handouts. I was simply intrigued by a place that was described in the chorus as:
Oh the buzzin' of the bees
In the cigarette trees
Near the soda water fountain
At the lemonade springs
Where the bluebird sings
On the big rock candy mountain.
One night we stopped at a motor court, as motels were sometimes called, and in the middle of the night we found out why it was so cheap. Express trains sped by at full bore, bells clanging, tracks clacking under the madly spinning wheels, and the vibrations from just behind the motel making the bed vibrate and bounce around the room. A few years later my dad saw the Lucy show where Ricky and Lucy and the Mertzes stayed in a motel right next to the tracks. "Hey," said Dad, "we stayed at that place!"
When we weren't having a picnic on stops along the way, we ate at diners. Many of them had been dining cars on the railroad and offered home cooking and a lot of local color. Eventually we crossed the Great Divide by squeezing through a single lane pass, and we were off to the great midwest.By the time green fields of corn became utterly boring, something new attached itself to our senses. These were the days before air conditioning, so one drove with the windows down. The odor of thousands of pigs and their...refuse...in the warm, springtime sun washed over us like a huge tsunami. I gagged and leaned out of the window, kneeling on my mom's lap as I tossed my cookies. Closing up the windows would have turned our faithful, white Chevy into a solar oven, so we endured it as best as we could.
When we reached my dad's parents' house in Wurtsboro, New York, we were exhausted, but excited. It was the first time they met my mom and me. My brother, Steve, would be born the next year in May of 1954, and shortly after that we would pack up and move back to the Catskills, to be closer to Granny and Pop Jahrling.I don't remember much about getting to our destination, but I sure do remember elements of that trip, along the single-lane highway that bisected the nation. These days eight hundred miles of Route 40 have been chopped off, and the highway ends in Utah in the west and Atlantic City, New Jersey in the east. For years when we lived in South Jersey, we would enter Atlantic City on Absecon Island by passing a huge sign that said, "Scenic Route 40, San Francisco, 3220 miles."
In this year of the fiftieth anniversary of the Interstate system, the message hasn't changed much: If you want to get from point A to point B quickly, take the Interstates. If you want to actually see our country, take the old U.S. routes.
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Comments: 31
Thanks for your comment, Heather!
i love travelling tales and this one is full of atmosphere and love!
Mary, you're welcome...I was actually a little surprised that so many Gatherites picked up on the frying pan mention. It's just so much a part of our family tradition that it didn't occur to me that it would be that interesting to others.
Chris, um...no...that's what I call the rolling pin, dear. ;-)
Your skillet is a treasaure and I hope you have a child who will value it in turn. I have a carving set from the 1860s, and my late husband's dinner table from the previous decade.
I, too, know that Rt. 40 sign outside Atlantic City and have memories of care trips in the 1950x on the US routes. Those motels may often be called dumps today, but back then they had a certain individuality that made them fascinating. I remember drives in the 1950s from North Jersey to southern NC on US 17 that took 2 long days with an overnight at the Tomahawk Motel if we didn't spend an additional night seeing some other site along the way. I remember the time we went farther west before the return east to visit the NC cousins, down the VA Skyline Drive and into the NC Smoky Mountains and the day in Cherokee, NC. I got one of those bakelite dolls, too, wearing her soft leather dress and feather, but was convinced she was a Cherokee! :-)
Do families still take their children on those long drives on the US routes so they can actually see the country?
I sure hope that parents take their kids on long drives to see the country. The Interstates are nice for making time, but they're so sterile. The best road trip we've done lately was taking the long, back route to Macon, Georgia. It was a sensational drive through gorgeous, lush roadsides and towns with Civil War cannons in front of the town hall. Such character!
Cheryl, thanks. I love these sweet memories of childhood.
Wonder read! Believe it or not, my family indulges in road trips often. (Although not quite as much this summer due to the gas prices - ouch!) We don't have a dvd player in the car or video game hook up for the kids. We play the alphabet game, listen to music taking turns to pick the cd, read out loud and explore rest stops like professionals. I like to think I've passed along a family tradition - although my kids might argue that we're carrying on a bit of arcane torture!
As for your frying pan - I envy you! I have many family heirlooms, but few were used regularly through the generations.
Thank you for such a wonderful article!
The second set of memories is when I took my "farewell tour"; after 8 years in the US, I tokk my then 3 year old daughter on a six week trip to visit places and people I had met before, and also places I had never been to.
We traveled from Indiana to West Virginia, then south to Florida. She loved the animals at the alligator farm; she even kissed the snake! Her favourite green tupperware cup is still doubling as the house of a mouse alongside the Interstate.
After Texas, Oklahome were I had a lot of visiting, we went west; and I discovered the riches of national parks in Utah. I think we toured 4 or 5 of them!
I guess sometimes I may write a complete article about that trip; but it is fun just to reminisce over your memories!
Jane, hahaha! Yep...even after decades and decades, that memory was...er...strong. ;-)
Beryl, the strange this is I remember it as clearly as if it was yesterday...just don't ask me where I put the stamps this morning. ;-) What a sweet thought...your grandkids putting rocks on Francesca's grave.
Gisela, we did that with Erik too, bringing only a few things to distract him from watching the world go by when we made long trips. I do have a strong memory of him with us at age 3, begging us to play Manhattan Transfer's "Birdland" over and over ad nauseum [grin]
Manette, I'm so glad you got to travel with your daughter through the U.S. before you left. We did that in Spain...finally getting to tour the country on our farewell trip from the south to Madrid, zig-zagging our way there.
Your lovely story evoked the memories of our family's station-wagon trips from California to Oklahoma back in the late fifties and sixties.
Precious memories do not fade.
By the way, I don't think that I told you that we bought the book, Diane Arbus Revelations, when we went to see her exhibition a few years ago at SF MOMA. I think that it's so cool that you are in the book!
Marilyn, it's interesting how many of us have such fond memories of long road trips. I don't know how they did it either. My grandmother, who was a child of ten when her family made the venture on the Oregon trail, told my mother stories, and so I got them third hand. What an amazing trip it was.
Carol,, that was your story...ah...I remembered it and the photo, but wasn't sure who had written it. I'm going back for a re-read/look. Ah...that was just as much fun the second read. Here's a link. It may have been the same trading post, but I suspect from the mission bell on the photo with the Chief, it was probably Colorado or New Mexico, not Utah where your grandparents stopped. Cool pix!
Genie, wow! I never heard of doing that to get off the baked on grease. I usually take a razor scraper tool to the stuff. Thanks for sharing that.
Jeremy, please go advertise elsewhere, NOT on my article. Thank you.
Tom, Smart move, taking on the desert at night. I'm glad you liked my piece.
Jan, you're so right. Precious memories stay with us, for which I am so grateful. How neat that you got the book. I have a copy as well. It still amazes me what that brief encounter with Arbus became. :-)
John, thank you. I'm glad you liked it.