One of the greatest gifts that my parents gave my siblings and me was being able to see the country by car in the 1960s. During a period from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, we camped all over the U. S. A. – from Bar Harbor, Maine to Deadwood,
South Dakota to
Cheyenne, Wyoming and all the way to Sausalito, California. We saw many of the best National Parks: Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, Sequoia, Mesa Verde, Rocky Mountain, Badlands and Wind Cave.
The memories of those vacations are priceless to me and I'm glad I saw America when we did, in a simpler, more innocent time.
But my parents' appetite for travel wasn't limited to traveling to other states. They enjoyed our home state of Ohio too. Besides camping all over the state, we also did a lot of day trips just for sightseeing. I used to wonder how my parents knew about the many attractions in the Buckeye State, since they didn't watch much TV or subscribe to very many magazines.
Many years later, I discovered that Mom used to keep a file of newspaper clippings of travel ideas. Perhaps she saw a series of stylish ads sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute that appeared in the Journal during the summer of 1963, each highlighting a sort of one-tank trip around part of Ohio. Two ads from the series are shown below. The first is from July 16, 1963; the second, from July 30, 1963.
Although the ads were basically encouraging travelers to drive and use more gas, they contained many excellent suggestions. We saw many of them, including
Thomas Edison's boyhood home in Milan,
Findley State Park (a favorite for camping and picnicking), the
Blue Hole, etc. Even Lorain and Vermilion are represented.
It's a pity that in today's hectic times, families have so many commitments, as well as entertainment choices (like Cedar Point passes), that it's easy to overlook the idea of seeing by car some of the wonderful sights that Ohio has to offer.
3 comments:
I'm jealous.
We were travelers, too, but no side trips for us. "Straight through and straight to" was the rule, only stopping when the car needed gas.
We passed Pedro's South of the Border so many times, I can't even begin to count.
The only time we ever stopped was on our way back from Nebraska, for the St. Louis Arch. That was the summer it opened, 1965. There wasn't even grass growing on the land around it, yet.
No camping for us, either. Dad spent his entire WW 2 service in a tent. No way was he repeating any of that hated experience.
But... We did leave at oh-dark:thirty. Us kids used to sleep in our clothes so we could be easily rousted to the car to get a move on whenever Dad decided it was time to go. I still prefer travel at night.
I love car trips.You get to really see America.I remember one time I took a trip out west and along the way saw a bunch of tumble weeds along the side of the road in Arizona on the way to the Grand Canyon.Being a city boy I only saw tumble weeds in western movies,so I pulled over and grabbed a few of the smaller ones and brought them back home.While I was chasing a few down I heard some type of "rattle".Low and behold it was a real live rattle snake resting in the shade under a sagebrush.Luckily he didn't strike or I don't know what I would have done out in the middle of nowhere.I still have the tumbleweeds hanging up in my garage and will always remember my "brush" with death.Nothing beats good old fashioned Americana road trips.I always think of Dinah Shore singing "See the USA in your Chevrolet" when I'm on the road.
Smiling...
Dinah Shore was okay, I suppose, but for me it's "See the USA in a C. Miller Chevrolet!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaD6_fEqihA
I did field research in the Great Southwest. Lots of unpleasant critters out there!
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