Tales from the Backseat: A Family Road Trip

Traveling in 1970 something was quite different than in 2020 something. Without the all-powerful and knowing internet, planning a trip meant visiting the library to look up travel books or arranging everything through an expensive travel agent. Hours in a library for a busy mother of three was not an option and travel agents were not really for family road trips.

But brochures and travel guides were free from many states and localities. So, my mother wrote “snail mail” letters to the areas we would visit to get books and brochures for local attractions. She kept them in a tote bag in the back of the car and took out what was needed for each state. With all the motel and restaurant books at her passenger side feet, she could only handle one state at a time.

With two almost teenagers and a little girl several years younger, she tried to plan one activity each day or at least every other day to minimize the mundane and torturous time locked in the metal tube on four wheels. So, programmed each day’s events, while trying to navigate the road for my dad, to ensure he turned the right way at the right time to stay on our route.

Without the auto navigation tools we rely on today, she read maps and plotted the course with remarkable precision. Her bible was a giant USA road atlas bound in an imitation leather snapping case we got courtesy of Triple A. We weren’t members, but somehow my dad finagled a free copy. He was a consummate salesman and had a knack for talking people into giving him free things.

Following the maps, we were on our way from southern Illinois to Missouri to the Silver Dollar City theme park on Interstate 55, otherwise known as the famous Rt. 66.

I didn't know the significance of the road's famous moniker and understood it even less when my dad tried to explain this 1950’s TV show where cool guys roamed the country on Rt. 66. Much to our dismay and ringing ears, he attempted to sing their theme song about getting their kicks on Route 66. Unfortunately, he couldn’t sing or remember a lot of the words to the song, so it all fell flat to kids who didn’t care about some old TV show.

A few short hours later, as we neared the amusement park, billboards and signs began to lead an exciting path down the yellow brick road. Each rolling advertisement showed good ole’ down home family fun and my dad did his best job to whip us up into a frenzy of anticipation.

“Look kids, only 50 miles until we get there,” he said, counting down the miles with each marker like a rocket mission into space.

With three whole amusement parks under my belt, I thought I was an expert. Years ago, we traveled to the Magic Kingdom of Disney World in Florida. The rides there were mostly travel through rides, depicting the storybook characters from their movies.

The other two were local permanent amusement parks in our area that had typical carnival rides for kids, along with a Christmas theme. They consisted of carousel rides which spun around at slow pace on horses, cars, boats or motorcycles while nearby parents waved and took pictures. Pretty tame for budding teenagers.

Sometimes we saw bigger and more thrilling rides at local summer festivals, but my father never let us go. Calling them transient carnivals, he believed they hired local drunk indigents on a daily or hourly basis to erect the rides with very little supervision or safety in mind. It may have reflected a bad experience he had in his youth, he didn’t say, but true or not, it was a concrete rule.

On the way, my father would hype us further with tales of my parents’ favorite date night amusement park. He loved to tell stories and did a decent job of captivating an audience, even though we suspected some of the tales were a little tall in nature. Luckily, my mom would chime in to correct the story, if it went too far into fiction.

The park, called Riverview, was located on the outskirts of Chicago. Constructed to vie Coney Island in New York, it maintained the rivalry of the first and second largest cities of the United States to stay in competition for everything.

“Riverview had roller coasters that carried you up and down at breakneck pace climbing to high hills and plunging to low valleys,” he explained.

My dad always used his hands when he told stories, illustrating the ebb and flow of the ride. He laughed and hollered to describe the excitement and thrill of each high and low, putting us right in the roller coaster car each step of the way.

When he told the stories, he’d peek back to see our fascinated smiling faces. But as he was driving, my displeased mother would purse her lips and watch the road carefully, ready to interject or intervene to keep us from colliding with other cars or tumbling off the road.

My mother’s favorite ride, as my father told, was the Rotor. He described in detail the cylinder which moved at a high pace using centrifugal force to paste you to the walls without any safety mechanisms.

“From the drop of your stomach as the floor removed, you felt perilously helpless at the possibility of falling to your death as you slid slightly a few inches at a time, laughing and screaming for the few minutes until the rides eventual end,” he told us.

“I loved to watch the faces of the stupid people who just ate lunch and went on the ride. Their faces would turn green and red and their cheeks would puff out. And unfortunately some couldn’t hold it in,” he laughed and called out only five miles until our arrival.

By this time, we were all on the edge of our seats thrilled at the possibility of real amusement rides.

We parked our car and my mom prepared the necessary clean wipes, toilet covers and anything else she may need in her Mary Poppins carpet bag of a purse.

Walking through the arched opening gate to Silver Dollar City with bated breath, we strolled down the narrow paths, finding less of an amusement park and more of a time loop where southern drawl speaking people wearing wide brim straw hats, overalls and bandannas showed city dwellers how country folks live.

There were butter churners, loom weavers and blacksmiths, among others, all displaying how things were done in the good old days. Pretty boring for a bunch of kids who wanted to careen down a rail on a wooden track. They did have some tame kiddy rides and carnival games, so we made the best of it.

And we rode a pretty cool iron black train replica around the park. And at an old general store, we each picked out a whole bag of penny candy. My brother, who was a notorious sugar fiend, filled his up with pixy sticks, rock candy and root beer barrel candies.

To satisfy my particular sweet tooth, I stocked up on licorice ropes, taffy, caramel and some butterscotch. Under my mother’s supervision, my sister took a bunch of lollipops and chocolate. It’s funny how different tastes can be within the same family.

At the photography studio, we took an old-fashioned photograph where you can dress up like cowboys, Indians and saloon girls. When we were done, a man from the park asked us if we would appear in a commercial they were filming. They needed some all-American kids to skip through the park, looking like they were having the time of their lives.

Although I thought it was a little dumb at the time, the man sold the idea of being on TV and after my shark dad negotiated some swag compensation, we agreed.

So, we spent an hour or so skipping down several areas in the park laughing and holding hands.

Despite my indifference, we were paid in gift certificates for free stuff at the general store, which we redeemed for t shirts, hats, trinkets and more candy. Not a complete loss.

The commercials were local, so we never saw them, but a relative in the area later said they did, so we had our fifteen minutes of almost, but not real fame. At least we were paid, sort of.

With our first tourist attraction ticked off the list, we were off to a motel for the night and more adventures in the “show me” state.

Part of traveling is living and breathing history. Instead of reading something in a textbook, you can see where it happened and feel a little bit of what people experienced. It brings it all to life.

My dad loved history and delighted in telling his children everything he knew, like an extreme field trip for Social Studies class. Unfortunately, the Venn diagram of what parents and children both appreciate is a narrow intersection. But as this was not only a quest for family fun, my parents thought it had to be educational too, so we saw history.

After a bright and early start the first order of business was breakfast. Because of the edict of eating exclusively at the few chain restaurants available at the time, my mom opened all her books to find a someplace acceptable on our path. She found it - Howard Johnson’s. For those who never ate at a Ho Jo’s, as it was nicknamed, was a nice reasonably-priced eat in chain restaurant that served every day family meals.

My dad wanted to eat in sit down restaurants. He deplored fast food outlets and scoffed at them as garbage. Despite the fare, there was something about sitting down and eating that he enjoyed. But he also didn’t like to waste money, so when I asked if they had cereal instead of a hot meal, my dad immediately put the kibosh on that.

“This is a nice restaurant where you'll order a regular meal. I’m not paying for an overpriced cereal box,” he said succinctly.

To me cereal was breakfast, just like at home, but my mother suggested I order pancakes and I did what I was told.

With full bellies, we were on our way to Meramec Caverns, five miles of caves that were formed from limestone deposits over millions of years.

On the short trip my father tried to explain to us how the caverns came to be. Something about water dripping and carving out these caves and how they only existed in this area. I was only half listening as I was reading about Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family’s adventures and hardships as pioneers. At the time, I thought her adventures were much more interesting.

As we entered the caverns, being underground with no sunlight was eerie and a little scary. The guide told us the scientific components of the caves, such as the stalactites that hang down and the stalagmites which poke up. To me, it all looked very neanderthal and I thought maybe that’s why they called them cavemen.

My mother made sure to keep track of all of us, as she was concerned about three kids walking around on slippery rocks. She kept control of my sister and had my dad hold hands with my brother and I.

The guide continued with a fanciful but true tale of how the famous western Younger Gang outlaws, which included brothers Frank and Jesse James would hide in these caves to avoid capture.

The thought of somebody staying in this place full time amazed me. With no light, hiding in a wet damp, dank and dark cave for long periods seemed impossible. But then again, if you were trying to stay out of jail, it seemed like a good place to hide. I That story brought the caves out of the science experiment and into real history for me.

We luckily escaped the tour without injury, but as we settled into the car, my mother lays the bombshell that Jesse James may have been our relative. That suddenly got my complete attention.

“My mother once told me a story that when her great-grandfather James emigrated from Wales in the 1800’s, they asked him if he had any relatives in the United States. He told the Ellis Island attendant that he had a distant cousin who lived in Missouri named Frank James, but had never met him. But as they were notorious and wanted outlaws, they detained him thinking that he knew the whereabouts of the famous James Gang. He didn’t. He was literally fresh off the boat and didn’t know anything about his infamous relatives,” she said.

We all smiled and listened with great interest. Although we didn’t know if it was true, we tucked that little family nugget in our memories. Somehow it made Meramec Caverns and the Younger Gang a little more personal and memorable. We had a connection with history.

As the caverns receded in our rearview mirror, we left Missouri for parts west. Our next stop was a ride through the sooner state to our next location, Dallas Texas.

(c) Suzanne Rudd Hamilton, 2022