Vacation Car Trips

Friends are going to Cancun, Mexico on vacation. I have not been to Cancun, but my visits to Mexico have always been enjoyable. I know they will have a good time. I love to travel. I take after Grandma W in that respect. She was ready to go at the drop of a hat, literately. At the end of WWII, many of my aunts and uncles traveled back and forth from Iowa to California and often ‘hauled’ paying passengers. They would put a notice in the newspaper telling how many persons they had room for, cost per person and date of departure. Every effort was made to accommodate the riders as to luggage and departure time.

Most of these trips were non-stop with a team of two, sometimes three, family members as drivers. They were very fast drivers, stopping only for meals and gasoline. It’s a miracle no accidents occurred in the many trips they made. There were no freeways, only two lane roads, open range, (cattle and horses were not fenced), with long stretches of rural country side. The east-west routes went down the main drag of small towns and thru the centers of larger cities. After passing the fields of local farmers, Burma Shave verses were the only relief from the monotony of wide open spaces. There were few facilities of any kind between towns, so mileage markers were carefully noted, especially the ‘last chance’ warning signs to ‘fill up’ with gasoline.

Autos did not have air conditioning. One drove with open car windows. Canvas bags of water were tied to the bumpers for emergencies and for drinking. The desert was driven at night to avoid scorching temperatures. The rays of sun rise and sun set blazed with blinding intensity on cloudless days. I don’t know if there were speed limits in open country back then, but it wouldn’t have made any difference. The cars my aunts and uncles drove were top of the line, luxury cars that stood up well under adverse driving conditions with speedometers registering speeds well past 100 mph. The brakes were mechanical, and there were no seat belts.

Sometimes Grandma W was invited along so she could visit some of the family that had left Iowa to settle in San Bernardino, (often called, San Berdu), and Los Angeles. She could be ready in minutes if necessary and regardless of possible hardship, she was raring to go. The circumstances of her life had taught her how to meet traveling hardships with practicality and simplicity. Her vacations were not the kind of leisure trips to foreign lands and souvenir shopping of different cultures that many of us enjoy today.

All my earliest travel trips were much like the ones Grandma W made. The destinations of Dad’s annual 3 week vacations were families in Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. Mom and Dad were not speeders, but once Dad got behind the wheel, he didn’t like stopping. After many requests to stop at the next gas station so we use a bathroom, Mom would say, “Herod! My dentures are floating”! Hours spent on the road cut into the precious visiting time with family.

Dad took his vacations in October which got us out of school for three weeks. To compensate for the lack of classroom study, Mom and Dad sandwiched tours to strange and unusual places for us on these vacation trips. Among some of the places we visited were a tannery, a mortuary, a weaving mill, horses at Churchill Downs, and the old family cemetery in Virginia.

In the early years of my marriage, trips from California to Pennsylvania were also rushed. Deadlines had to be met when my husband attended summer classes at Temple University while at the same time we visited his family for the summer. At the end of summer we rushed back to California to meet the deadline for his fall classes. For many years now, I’ve had the opportunity to enjoy leisurely trips by both auto and air.



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