My Dad Was Chevy Chase

The year was 1974. Who knows what the price or availability of gas was. We owned a 'not new' station wagon, and lived in Evansville, Indiana (East of Missouri). It was Winter and my dad was in sales with Sears Roebuck and Company. This was his slow time. So.....he decided on a whim to take off for three weeks and drive the family out to California and back to visit dear Aunt Daisy. The family was two sisters, two brothers, six of us in all including parents.It was snowing in Evansville when we left, we had around six inches by the time we reached the main highway (highway 41) out of town. We drove to St. Louis and thought we were almost there...having asked the perennial question between the four of us at least a half a dozen times apiece.We drove.We drove and drove and drove. We say snow on the plains, in the desert. We saw the wind whipping tumbleweeds through Oklahoma. We saw the adobe houses and natural rock formations of New Mexico. Of course, we saw the Grand Canyon which was Grander beyond description upon arriving home.Looking back, it seems like we spent just a few days at Aunt Daisy's, even though it was in actuality a full week. The drive to and from was the real vacation for me. I had seen the country on the map, but had never experienced just how huge, wonderful and beautiful the United States really and truly is.I was used to farmland interrupted by cities and towns. I had no idea you could drive for 500 miles through Arizona and New Mexico without seeing hardly a gas station. I didn't know it at the time, but I experienced a Zen state, lying on my back in the back of the station wagon, peering through the back window at the huge, amazing sky and the cactii and incidental landscape flowing by. There is nothing like standing in the painted desert and looking around, where by all accounts, you're standing on a completely different planet, yet have never felt more at home on Earth. The dirt, the dust, rubbed between fingers and clapped between palms, the prick of a cactus needle, the horizon interrupted by rock plateaus, all added up to a truly breathtaking experience.In California, I got to ride in my first skateboard park (Skatopia), visit Disney Land and Knott's Berry Farm, tour the Queen Mary ocean liner, and check out Hollywood's Walk of Fame at the Chinese Theater.I ate Chinese takeout for the first time, saw boulders sliding across the Pacific Coast Highway, which was shut down while we were on it due to mudslides, and witnessed the majestic Pacific Ocean.I will never forget that trip. It truly was epic in scope and variety. We became closer as a family, became more of a part of the Country, and learned what it was to truly travel.Since, I have visited the East Coast, but nothing compares to the trip we made out to California...