AAA Niagara Falls Tripette – August 1962

On my post on Monday about the untimely death of Marilyn Monroe, I mentioned that Niagara (1953) was my favorite movie that she starred in. While she was great in it (playing a cheating wife who plots to have her husband murdered), for me the real star of the movie was Niagara Falls itself. It was fascinating to see both the Canadian and American Falls, as well as the surrounding areas, in color circa 1953.

(There are a few websites that feature photographs of some of the movie's locations. This one shows an existing overlook structure on the Canadian side overlooking the Falls, and how it was integrated into the movie set as part of the motel. This one has some "then and nows.")

Anyway, back on August 3, 1962, Niagara Falls was the subject of a Lorain Automobile Club Tripette, a regular feature in the Journal offering travel suggestions for short, 'one-tank style' trips.

But as you can see by the small, handy map, there was no I-90 in the Lorain area yet for the Niagara Falls-bound traveller to take all the way to Buffalo. Instead, the motorist had to take State Route 2 to Mentor and then jog down to pick up I-90. 

Today, most people don't get their news from newspapers, and thus don't rely on them for travel tips. As for the AAA, the days of one of its employees assembling a TripTik from preprinted pages and highlighting it with a pen ended a long time ago as well.

In some ways, it's a pity that we've become so sophisticated when it comes to traveling, because much of the mystery, anticipation, and challenge have been eliminated.