Summer Road Trips ~ "back in time"! (the best, how much, buy)

[AksarbeN]

I’m getting ready for the summer road trip and got to thinking about the days when you could enjoy the ride and trip just getting to your destination. I remember as a kid seeing those Burma-Shave signs along the highway in the middle of a stretch of cornfields along country roads. I couldn’t for the life of me remember any of the slogans however until I did a research.

Burma Shave Slogans of the Fifties - Page One
The Burma Shave Phenomenon

This last group of slogans I liked the best!
http://seniors-site.com/funstuff/burma.html

After a visit on that webpage I remember my sister and I in the backseat of the car getting into trouble but never anything harmful, just kids play.

So what do you remember when the folks took you on a road trip for the summer vacation? Where did you go and did you enjoy it?

~~
I stopped seeing the Burma-Shave signs when Coke upped the size of the 8 oz bottle to 12 oz. The whole world went down hill from that point in time. Until C-D was Invented!

[Pikantari]

I remember going down to Georgia every summer in my moms big white Lincoln Mercury Station wagon with green seats. Bench seats. Of course the front one facing foward and the middle one facing foward and the little one all the way in the back would come out of the floor and face towards the rear...

You could see the people behind you woohoo... my fav seat in the whole car and that was a long ride! We would go from Maryland to Smyrna, Georga, and you could see the difference as you got further south. The red clay...

Used to wear a cowboy hat when I was down there... I was Daddys girl...My kids will never know fun road trips like that.... all I hear is, "Are we there yet?!?!?"

I really dont remember the signs, but I did love those old glass coke bottles... sorry!

[YOTH]

I just did a trip from NYC to the Smoky Mtns in March. I forgot how much fun they can be.

[Miss Blue]

Arks, those sights are good. I fav'd them for later. We didn't take many road trips when I was a kid, because we seldom had money enough to own a car. The couple of trips I remember was one time we drove to Charleston. W. Va. from Ohio where we were born and raised. I fell in love with the mountains at first sight (I was about 8 at the time) and told my mom that when I grew up I would marry a man from the mountains and move there. I did.... about 25 years laterCame to East Ky in 1974 with 4 kids two dogs and a cat in an old "72 Ford wagon following my husband in a Uhaul

[AksarbeN]

Yeah ,,, we too couldn’t afford to go often, maybe every 4-5 years or so. However Dad seemed to always enjoy taking me fishing and camping out into the western part of the state. Many nights by the fire and listening to the sounds of the wildlife while keeping an eye on the fishing rod seemed to provide the best of time together. I often miss those days when we would go out and I really wished I’d have made him take me more often.

Mom would make breakfast on an old camp stove, cook coffee on the fire, and the dog would run around chasing butterflies in the early sunlight. Never a bad moment then even if it was raining and we had to stay inside the tent until things cleared up.

Life was indeed better then in those days. Not much money but our lives were rich with love and time together as a family and with friends.

[Tek_Freek]

Never had the pleasure. Must have been fun to do those things as a child.

[michelleleigh]

oohh my sisster allways had the back seat to her self. I mean she owned the back seat my brother and I shared the front seat(we had a van) I also rember having to go to the bathromm so bad and all my brother would do was to talk about having to go to the batheroom. Oh and my Mom allways saw animals that would turn otu to be either rocks, people or fake (she still does this) we had ablast

[AksarbeN]

Road trips without the toys was a good way for families to get to know one another. Kids had to talk with Mom and Dad or each other instead of on cell phones to other friends. Locked in a moving car driving across the country with nothing to do be talk to each other, you had to get to know one another or you’d be in big trouble.

No cell phones, no ipods, no pc’s, no gameboys, no toys!

[recycled]

Signs in the southeast: "See Rock City".
Signs in the northern plains: "Wall Drug, XX miles" (with arrow pointing the way).
Signs in the west: Harrahs or Bust, Reno XX miles (with arrow pointing the way)
Signs along highway 101 in CA + OR: "Trees of Mystery" or "Oregon Caves".
Signs along I-80 in WY + UT: "Little America, xx miles".

As a kid riding in the back seat of a non-air conditioned 1956 Chrysler New Yorker from California to all points north, south and east, these signs were pretty common, many are still hanging along the road.
Question: Are we there yet? Answer: No.

[_redbird_]

From 1958 or so, my family took the Mother Road- Route 66, from So. California to OK.

I was only three when my first memories come in on these great adventures. I used to think OKLA was on the moon because we had to travel so far.

My all time favorite memory is from these trips: With four kids, my place to sleep was on the back dash of a 59 chevy impala. I could lie on my back and look up (out the back window) at the stars as we drove on endlessly into the night. Everyone else would sleep right off the bat except for me and my imagination. Sometimes my dad would invite me to the front seat and tell me to help keep him awake. We would stop someplace and he would get coffee and buy me a hot chocolate.

Sometime in 97 I worked in Elk City, OK at the Route 66 Museum. There is a lot of memoribilia there.

we just returned from a trip to WY, NE, CO, and Santa Fe, NM. I still love long road trips.