54 years ago, my Mom loaded her three sons into our brand-new Chevy station wagon and lit out from Virginia to California to Michigan and back. Maw called it 62 days under canvas.
A few summers back, I put together this blog to mark the 50th anniversary. I’d intended it to be nostalgic. Now that the world is where it is, this has taken on all-new significance — the great outdoors, exploring new cultures, lots of personal interaction. Nostalgic indeed.
It’s is a day-by-day recounting of the nine week trip, including excerpts from Maw’s diary (with permission), old-timey paper maps and AAA tour books purchased on Ebay, as well as photos and impressions of those who were transported and transformed.
I asked her, as part of this exercise, why did she do it. Simply, “I wanted to go to California.” And so she and her boys did.
Maw passed away three years ago, but thanks to the internet–and my heart–her spirit lives on.
Note: This is NOT a new road trip. It is a recounting of the one that happened 50 years ago.
Driver, cook, nightly construction supervisor, navigator, personal shopper, cruise director, protector, provider, saint, miracle worker. And it was all her idea!
I asked her recently: Why? Her answer: “I wanted to go to California, and this is what I had to do to get there.”
Dad, Pop
Pop hopped a flight to LA to meet up with the rest of the family for a few weeks of our west coast swing. As Mom explains, he simply couldn’t take the whole summer off. Dad was an avid and talented photographer, so his time on the road is better documented that other times. Alas, there is not a rich photographic record of the trip.
Tim, Timbo.
Age 15. The eldest brother. Tim was, dare I say, an obsessive fisherman, and I learned recently from Maw that she selected campgrounds based on access to fishing. Enabler!
He came through in spades! More than thirty documented fishing expeditions in 62 days. But I don’t think we (or, I) used them for sustenance.
Mike, Miko.
Age 8. In her diary, Mom sometimes refers to Mike and me as “the little ones.” Um, okay. It does appear that we were paired most of the time for swimming and gofer-ing. And I guess we were little. So, whatever. Mike required weekly allergy shots in whatever town or crossroads we happened to find ourselves, events Mom records religiously in her diary.
Doug. Age 4. Cute as a friggin’ button! Otherwise mostly dead weight.
I provided some full-sensory comic relief in the form of car sickness, getting lost and upending pee jars. You are welcome.
The Tent. No frills, unless you count the smell of raw, musty nature. To this day I remember the sensation of rain and storms on the other side of that thin piece of canvas. LOVED IT.
The Chevy Kingswood. Mom and Dad purchased a brand new station wagon for the trip. On stormy nights it also served as our refuge. Behind this we pulled a trailer that carried the tent, stove, chuck box and more.
Mom’s Diary. My bible for reconstructing the places, faces and times we had. Thanks to Mom for keeping it, and thanks to Mom for letting us share it here.
Time change helped getting us up early. Showered and washed my hair. Reached the Arnolds about noon, had lunch and the boys played until about 4. (Mike’s shot) Got to the Meramac State Park and set up. The boys played in the river. Exhausted.
America’s “main street” Route 66 was still thriving in 1969, but it was slowly being paved over by I-40. I don’t really remember it from our trip, but I’ve been told that, much like Marilyn Monroe, it’s reputation has been inflated and romanticized beyond recognition. Even so, you can still enjoy some of the kitsch the next time you choose to drive across the country.
And you can forever enjoy the stylings of Nat King Cole.
Road Tripping: By the Numbers
Here’s what happened each day along the way, according to Mom’s diary. I have a feeling there was even more swimming and fishing, medical issues and maintenance on the car and tent. But Maw is not one to kvetch.
Tim caught a nice mess of crappies and cleaned them before we left. Drove through Missouri. Had a tailgate picnic around Springfield. Set up for the weekend on Grand Lake, the Lake of the Cherokees, near Grove, Oklahoma.
Marge Binder, June 20, 1969
You can check out the latest from Grand Lake here.
Did the washing. Grove has 10-cent double dip ice cream cones. Windy. The sky turned green about noon and it blew down the tent. Had to get a pole fixed. The boys swam. Barbecued chicken and made s’mores.
Marge Binder, June 21, 1969
This day I do remember. The tent was not small or lightweight, so it was quite a violent sight when it blew apart. We were still in the first week of this trip so I’m impressed (and inspired) that Maw kept moving west, seemingly undaunted.
And I love that Maw chose to chronicle the 10-cent double dips in Grove; it’s amazing what discount ice cream can do to a person’s disposition.
This graphical piece from the Washington Post is pretty spectacular. It doesn’t stretch as far back as the 60s, but you can see how increasingly robust are the nation’s extreme weather events. Looking back, I’m amazed that we didn’t encounter more instances of violent weather crossing the midwest. (These days it seems like lightning, tornados and flooding are a daily occurrence, at least according to our nation’s Doppler-armed and sensationalized meteorologists.)
I’ve long held the belief that, if you want to really know someone, travel with them. Even more so: go on a roadtrip together. Such events led to more than one breakup back in the day.
Of course, as a car- and tent-confined Family, we Binders had to coexist. Here are a few of the rules and procedures we followed, along with a few ideas from the good people at AAA.
Quiet Hour
For every hour a child stayed completely quiet, the parents would bestow 25 cents. We could use it for anything, usually candy and arcade games at the next stop. Thing is: You had to be quiet for a full hour, not 55 minutes. So as the clock ticked down to the magic moment, the boys would begin trying to sabotage each others’ progress, making faces, tickling, general intimidation. But, like I said, they were Family, so we couldn’t leave them at the next rest stop and move on.
The Pee Jar
Yes, it is what it sounds like it is. I imagine it worked because we were three boys sans modesty. It was always there, on the floor of the backseat, and when nature called we would get low and take care of business. There was an incident explained in Mom’s July 28 recollection where something bad happened to the pee jar. Boys! Amirite?
Art & Diversions
I don’t recall for certain, but I’m pretty sure Mom loaded us up with pens and paper. All three of us were budding artists (but none of us followed our bliss), so I can imagine some competitive doodling and sketching along the way. Tim was the illustrator — faces, animals, fish. Mike visualized sci-fi scenarios and architecture. I worked in long form, mixing scrawl with sketch. Like so much of this trip, the evidence is lost to the ages.
I seem to remember some “I Spy” and license plate bingo. Mom recently described some other games that I don’t recall, but they do sound plausible! Something about points for seeing cows: white cows were low scoring, black/brown better, and spotted cows were prime point sources.
Mom recently recalled that Tim would read aloud from John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley (in Search of America) and the last of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books. We also listened to the radio in the car, whatever AM stations we could find for as long as we could keep their signal.
Travel Tips 1969 vs 2019
Here’s what AAA suggested families do for traveling with kids back in 1969, before video games, tablets and seat-back video screens. And phones, internets, etc. etc.
In my entire childhood, I never heard of any of these activities.
I was surprised recently when I came across this story from Travel Channel; the diversions they suggest for roadtripping with kids includes quite a few non-tech activities. Bravo!
Had breakfast at the Cattleman’s Cafe. Had a “tail” picnic for lunch (that’s Doug-ese for “tailgate.” Camped at Bluewater State Park in New Mexico but it was miserable cold and windy so we slept in the car.
Marge Binder, June 25, 1969
Note Mom’s amusement (nay, astonishment!) at me coining terms like “tail” instead of tailgate. What a little marketer.
I’m seeing a pattern here: Every place we stopped seemed to have abundant fishing opportunities.
In my 54 years I have never met anyone who actually liked the Grand Canyon. It’s a place you have to visit, of course. You stand on the edge, make some jokes about falling in, take some pictures and head back to the car. (These days you might also attempt a selfie, an activity that has been thinning the Gen-Y herd quite aggressively here in 2019). Then you drive for hours back to whatever highway you’d been on and put the whole dusty encounter behind you.
As a courtesy, past visitors don’t bad-mouth it to others who are thinking of visiting. Let them undertake the same aforementioned actions and draw the same lame conclusion for themselves. Shhh.
Got a very early start with no packing to do. The kids slept again later but I drove 350 miles. Stopped at Flagstaff for groceries, a picnic and Mike’s shot. Set up in a KOA at Williams and drove 60 (+60) miles to see the Grand Canyon. Windy and dirty.
Marge Binder, June 26, 1969
Here’s your chance to own a campground!
There weren’t many KOAs (Kampgrounds of America) back in the day, and Mom was keen to camp there whenever budgets afforded and a hot shower beckoned. Guess what: Today, you can own your very own KOA. Go on, sounds awesome! I’ll stop by. On my way to a Hyatt or a Marriott.
A rare interjection in this blog from 2020: Maw passed away last night, peacefully and at home. My brother Mike was there with other family. And because she kept driving us west 51 years ago, despite so many obstacles and hardships, I’m going to keep re-publishing these posts every day to honor her memory. A grand coincidence is that 51 years ago today, Mom did finally arrive in California, her Promised Land.
Got a good start thanks to the time changes. Drove through the desert all day. Reached Barstow about 4 and got a fancy ($4) tra-tel with pool, shade and showers, also rocks. Has been blowing hard ever since we reached Oklahoma.
Marge Binder, June 27, 1969
Mom calls the camp “fancy” and indicates she dropped 4-large for this TraTel. For me, at four years old, it must have been my first encounter with a portmanteau. Thank you Barstow for so much love!
From Woodall’s
I passed through Barstow every few months on working roundtrips from Santa Monica to Las Vegas back in the aughts. It was not a place where I ever stopped. I preferred Baker, with its almost rustic main drag and sky-high thermometer.
In revisiting Barstow for this 1969 travelogue, I have to admire that it was an original crossroads of the interstate system — Interstates 15 and 40, nee Rte 66 — as well as the gateway to the Mojave Desert and a number of military installations. Next time I pass through, I’ll let myself wax nostalgic for the place that treated Mom and her boys nice, if even for a night. But I probably won’t stop.
Baked cornbread, visited the store, rested. Took the little guys to Crystal Lake to swim and try to catch minnows and polywogs—several hundred people there. Later Tim came too but couldn’t go out in a boat for fish—under 18. Everyone left. Threw stones and toasted marshmallows.
Marge Binder
Back in the day, there weren’t interstate exits teeming with fast food drive-thrus for road trippers to inhale as they blew by. It was mostly gas stations and mom’n’pop shops in small towns miles off the highway. Mom makes a few references in her diary to stops at A&Ws (a fast-food chain pioneer and still a family favorite, if you can find one), as well local finds like Perry’s back in Grove, OK.
For the most part, Mom had to shop almost daily (again, in local stores) and then serve up to three meals a day, plus snacks and treats like the cornbread and toasted marshmallows she describes here.
When in camp, there were campfire meals like breakfast and burgers, as well as things cooked on the “balky” Coleman stove. For lunch on the road, the staple was American cheese on white bread with mustard. What could be more American in the 60s?
Mom kept things organized with the Chuck Box that Dad built. It housed all of the utensils, condiments and some non-perishables. She also kept a cooler stocked with cheese and less-perishable goods. For meats, Mom would buy and cook it on the same day.
That’s the chuck box interior, taken on an earlier trip.
In short: No one starved.
Dad’s hat in the foreground, proof that he was an able (if not alway eager) outdoorsman.
…and Drink.
As for Drink, the only references in Mom’s diary are to the Kool-Aid I threw up onto Tim’s back (spoiler alert: We celebrate the 50th of that tomorrow!) and some champale she describes on two instances late in the trip.
She recently confided that she enjoyed a little champale every night of the trip. And deservedly so. Cheers!
Had trouble pulling stakes & had to leave several. Drove down that terrible road. Doug threw up his crackers and kool-aid when we got to Azuza. Visited Uncle Russ & Aunt Marge. Had lunch. Phoned campgrounds. Set up at Lomita trailer park. Visited the Pacific.
That “terrible road.”
This is the road Mom references. Looking at it, I’m feeling the kool-aid and crackers gurgling up even now!
Seriously, what could go wrong when you load a four-year-old up with crackers and Kool-Aid, stuff him in the back seat and then traverse this serpentine nightmare?
As I recall (which might have been a dream), I erupted forth with a smooth pink sloosh into the front passenger seat, right down Tim’s back.
Ever since, Mom considered this episode a highlight and a low point of the trip and my childhood. To this day, Mom refers to this moment by its exact geography: “25 miles north of Azusa.”
This is probably from the 1930s, which was just before Mom moved to SoCal with Gran and Uncle Harold, They lived there for only two years, but it made an impact. Photo shared from here.
Mom moved with Gran and Uncle Harold to Los Angeles in the early 1940s, soon after my grandfather’s very untimely passing. She was about 12. All my life, she’s shared her fascination with southern California, recounting tales of the trolleys and buses that ferried her all over. There were still plenty of orange groves and a feeble infrastructure back then, but it sounded pretty glamorous to me! She recently mentioned her discovery and love of artichokes; something else she missed when they all returned to artichoke-deprived Michigan after two years.
Mom and I visited again in 1980 (a whole other story, including bunking at Howard’s Weekly Apartments on the way-sketchy Hollywood Boulevard, a day of Family Feud and an evening with Lynda Carter and Tom Jones!).
It was always my destiny to live here. Accomplished, if only for a half dozen years.
No smog in Lomita but lots of refineries. Spent 2 hours at Marineland. Mike & Doug swam in swim club pool. Washed and restocked. They all had a romp in the ocean, then a shower.
Marge Binder, July 1, 1969
Lomita
Here’s a screen grab from the Lomita website. I love the illustration of a proud and bustling Lomita surrounded by the fields that would soon rise high and shut out the bright lights of mighty Los Angeles.
The Tick Tock
While this location doesn’t appear to be ideal, Mom says it was convenient to everything, especially the beach. One of the highlights I remember is a place called the Tick Tock (or TikTok) that neighbored the campground. Most mornings, Mom and Dad would entrust Mike and me with several dollars to retrieve coffee, donuts and whatever else caught our fancy.
Like so many monuments of our 1969 trek, the little market is gone and forgotten, at least by the internet and chamber of commerce.
Marge Binder's Epic Adventure 