Okay, a question for anyone out there:
What do you think of when you think of car trips that you took as a kid?
The next show I’m directing is Leaving Iowa, a great show about a guy who has to figure out where to leave his fathers ashes. As he drives around the Midwest, he also flashes-back to some of the family vacations they took when he was a kid. So, although I’ve directed this play before (I love it), I’m looking for ideas and thoughts on the kinds of things that people think of when you think back to driving around on car trips/summer vacations that you took when you were young? OR the trips you take now, as a parent, with your own kids!
No comment is too silly, too out there, too personal, too obvious or too obscure!
Thanks!!
Tony Caselli 
I loved them. We drove at least twice a year from Champaign to Dearborn/Monroe, and then summers we’d go camping. My father was a grad student and then a professor so he had lots of freedom during the summer. We went to Niagra Falls a few times and we saw the Grand Canyon and sometimes we’d just drive and camp for a week and then drive somewhere else and camp some more.
My mother read the entire Chronicles of Narnia to us by flashlight while camping.
We had an old Volkswagen van. It was robin’s egg blue on the bottom and white on the top. We would make beds on the floors between the seats with all the luggage and toys we had brought along on vacation. So each kid would either have a seat itself or bed made of suitcases and blankets.
It’s funny now because it used to seem like those were long trips from Illinois to Michigan. They seemed long to us kids. Google maps says Champaign, IL to Monroe, MI is only six hours. HA! I could have sworn that was a two day trip.
The most coveted position of all was the “way-back.” (Did other families call it that??) The way-back in a VW van was basically a piece of particle board suspended over the engine. It is where they put Alan Arkin after he died in “Little Miss Sunshine.” It’s probably not even legal to ride back there anymore, but it was warm and had great vibration! 🙂
Anyway… When we were all asleep my parents would stop by a diner or coffee shop, lock us in, and go eat donuts without us. We tried to stay awake and catch them in the act. My parents still deny they did this but I caught them many times. I was just too tired to get up and make a scene :).
One summer day we were all being very noisy– bouncing around back there, fussing about who was touching who, and singing silly songs. My father had been very quiet all day. Suddenly he pulled the car over to the side of the road and yelled “Everybody get out of the car.”
We were immediately silent and slunk out of the car, assuming we were all in trouble. He walked slowly around the back of the car and suddenly said, “You all go stand under that tree.”
We were stopped in front of an enormous yard in front of a big farm house. In the middle of the yard was a big willow tree and nailed to the tree was a sign that says “Jesus Saves.” We all ran to the tree and stood there watching my father as black smoke started billowing out of the back of that van.
We were half a day from home. My mother’s best friend, Martha, came to get us. The farmer and his wife let us play in their yard while we waited. We had cheap little cameras we had gotten on vacation and took rolls and rolls of black and white film while we waited under the willow tree that day. Not many of the pictures turned out, but the ones that did were some of my mother’s favorite pictures ever of our family.
A few days later we got a new Volkswagen Van. It was maroon. It was the car I learned to drive with. But that’s another story.
[I had to split my car trip story in two because I’m quite verbose.]
[Part two]
Our other favorite family car trip story is the last car trip we made as a family before anyone got married. I was in college and Jimmy was out of high school working at Uncle John’s Pancake House. My sisters were in High School.
We took two cars. My father’s car was a copper colored Ford Fairmont. Standard transmission. I loved that car. I was the only other person allowed to drive his car. I LOVED that car.
My mother had a blue Rabbit. We’ve always been heavily into VWs.
ANYWAY– we traded off driving and regrouped a lot. This was probably 1980 or 81 and because of that trip I remember that Chicken McNuggets were all the rage at that time. Barbi wanted Chicken McNuggets for every meal.
We drove to Pensacola, FL to visit my maternal grandmother and our three aunts and their families who had all settled around there– Pensacola and Kissimee.
The big family story about that trip– this was PRE-cell phones!– was making signs to communicate from car to car and almost crashing both cars into each other many times. Barbi’s signs always said “I want McNuggets.” It wasn’t as dramatic as the “Jesus Saves” story, but at the time we thought it was hilarious.
Then we had the best fish fry EVAH and my cousin Terry took me and my sisters out drinking. We never went out together at home. Sisters! It was a good night. It was a good trip.
Sorry. I apparently have a lot to say 🙂 🙂 🙂 Anything else you need to know? 🙂
These were both WONDERFUL, thanks Mary! How great! (and now I have a craving for Chicken McNuggets!)
We DID call it the way-back in our station wagon, and that was definitely before seat belt laws, cuz we would climb around back there, spread out blankets and sleep, all sorts of stuff!!
Thank you Mary!
I remember going with my best friend’s family to their cottage in northern Michigan at Waloon Lake. On the way up, my best friend and I (at about age 6 or 7) played our favorite game, wherein we’d say something that we agreed about and then one of us would say “right?” and the other one would say “right!” and then in unison we’d say “we said right again!” Since we had said “right,” in that last sentence, we could begin the (vicious) cycle over again and it turned into something resembling “the song that never ends,” which I’m sure our parents must have loved.
At my friend’s cottage we swam lots and went for walks and made “sand cookies” and played cards and could canoe and go for boat rides. When we were pretty young (again around 6 or so) my best friend and I decided to “swim around the world,” the world for us being the doc and boathouse. To protect ourselves, we gathered everything we could find that would float; boogie boards, inner tubes, floaties, you name it and we succeeded in making our big swim.
Another favorite memory is being allowed to drive the motorboat a little when we were about 10 or 11. I think I may have run us into a sandbar at one point, but it was fun.
One night, my friend’s dad took us out for a boat ride and then pretended that we had run out of gas. We tried calling for help and paddling as much as we could, and then started making plans to sleep on the boat. It was soooo exciting. Once the jig was up, I did not take it well. I had believed in the story so much and was so excited that I felt really disappointed and betrayed when I found out that it was just a joke. Still, it was a thrillingly fun time that I will never forget.
Fun!! Those car games that wind up driving the parents crazy are so much fun! I think there will be several versions of those in the show! 🙂
We’d play I-Spy or we’d each pick a car colour and keep track of how many we saw or we’d read licence plates. I’d try to sneak a few chapters of a book, but my parents didn’t like me reading while the car was moving. I really liked travelling on busy highways at night because I loved looking at the flashing neon business signs, especially on the stretch between Toronto and Hamilton.
I-Spy is SO much fun in the car! We play that all the time with our kids, too. 🙂 My daughter loves to try and read in the car, but it always makes her feel ill, so it’s a tough battle! Thanks, Allison!
My mom’s family is in Iowa, and at some point my folks got the idea that it would be fun to drive to and from family visits there by two different routes. I was an only child, but I never got the front seat. My dad always drove, my mom was always shot gun. I was car sick a lot. My dad and I would sometimes team up to annoy the living hell out of my mom by insisting we stop at every single historical marker we saw. I remember her threatening that if we stopped at one more plaque commemorating where Lewis’ horse took a shit we were going to be walking the rest of the way home. We played the license plate game endlessly (see if you could get all 50 states in one trip.) When they needed a break from me, they would insist we play the game where you had to spell everything you wanted to say.
The “Historical Marker” is a big part of the play I’m directing – the Dad is a big fan of all of those things! 🙂
We played the license plate game a bunch too, but I’ve never heard of the “Spell everything you want to say” game – which is an AWESOME way to get your kids to be quiet!! Too funny!
I just remember the sheer, devilish glee in my dad’s eyes as he would cry “Look! There’s another one!” and my mom would throw up her hands and yell “MiCHAEL!!”
My family trips
From the time I was three years old until I was 10, my family would rent a cottage for a week in East Tawas, which was then a three-and-a-half or four drive from Northwest Detroit.
What made those trips fun – and bearable – were the stops we’d make along the way. One memorable stop that we did each and every year – both coming and going – was at the Turkey Roost, a restaurant somewhere near Bay City or Saginaw. They had their own turkey farm, and the birds were penned near the parking lot so you could stop and look at them, talk to them or wonder which was next to be served on a plate.
When I was about five – and I remember this clearly, nearly 50 years later – I got a little too close to the pen and was (viciously, I claim) pecked by one of the turkeys. It hurt like heck and actually left a scar for many years. Everyone laughed – except me, of course, since I was stunned and in pain – but from that point on, it became a ritual to ask out loud whether or not I’d get pecked on THIS visit. (And no, I didn’t. I learned my lesson the first time.)
There were several other spots we’d visit every year, such as Mystery Ridge (where water ran UP hill), but interestingly enough, we never tired of such places. And they’ve all given my family and me great memories that we STILL share and laugh about many years later.
Re: My family trips
It’s amazing how those little moments – getting pecked and having people laugh – can stick with us for so long, isn’t it?!
And those places like Mystery Ridge – so much fun! They really do become little icons for us: I will never forget the giant pink elephant that we passed every year (and STILL pass) on our way up North!
Thanks Don!
Car Trips
I remember getting car sick. A lot. I was always alone in the back seat (no sibs in the same age range as me). Sometimes I’d try to read. That was the kiss of death. I usually spent most of the trip with my nose as close to the cracked open window as possible. Hurled a couple of times… not many really. But felt sick a lot. Ugh.
-ECSS
I remember being in the back of a Pinto, playing Mad Libs with you, while our sister yelled from her restraints! Remember the time we were driving along and she just said “bitch”. I think she was only about 20 months old…