Don't Make Me Pull Over!: An Informal History of the Family

Don't Make Me Pull Over!: An Informal History of the Family Road Trip

Part pop history and part whimsical memoir in the spirit of National Lampoon's Vacationâ€”Donâ€™t Make Me Pull Over! is a nostalgic look at the golden age of family road tripsâ€”a halcyon era that culminated in the latter part of the twentieth century, before portable DVD players, iPods, and Google Maps.

In the days before cheap air travel, families didnâ€™t so much take vacations as survive them. Between home and destination lay thousands of miles and dozens of annoyances, and with his family Richard Ratay experienced all of themâ€”from being crowded into the backseat with noogie-happy older brothers, to picking out a souvenir only to find that a better one might have been had at the next attraction, to dealing with a dad who didnâ€™t believe in bathroom breaks.

The birth of America's first interstate highways in the 1950s hit the gas pedal on the road trip phenomenon and families were soon streamingâ€”sans seatbelts!â€”to a range of sometimes stirring, sometimes wacky locations. Frequently, what was remembered the longest wasnâ€™t Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone, or Disney World, but such roadside attractions as â€œThe Thingâ€ in Texas Canyon, Arizona, or â€œThe Mystery Spotâ€ in Santa Cruz, California. In this road tourism-crazy era that stretched through the 1970â€™s, national parks attendance swelled to 165 million, and a whopping 2.2 million people visited Gettysburg each year, thirteen times the number of soldiers who fought in the battle.

Now, decades later, Ratay offers a paean to what was lost, showing how family togetherness was eventually sacrificed to electronic distractions and the urge to "get there now." In hundreds of amusing ways, he reminds us of what once made the Great American Family Road Trip so great, including twenty-foot â€œland yachts,â€ oasis-like Holiday Inn â€œHolidomes,â€ â€œSmokey"-spotting Fuzzbusters, 28 glorious flavors of Howard Johnsonâ€™s ice cream, and the thrill of finding a â€œgood buddyâ€ on the CB radio.

A rousing Ratay family ride-along, Donâ€™t Make Me Pull Over! reveals how the family road trip came to be, how its evolution mirrored the countryâ€™s, and why those magical journeys that once brought families togetherâ€”for better and worseâ€”have largely disappeared.
Country USA
Brand Scribner Book Company
Manufacturer Scribner
Binding Hardcover
ReleaseDate 2018-07-03
UnitCount 1
EANs 9781501188749

Country	USA
Brand	Scribner Book Company
Manufacturer	Scribner
Binding	Hardcover
ReleaseDate	2018-07-03
UnitCount	1
EANs	9781501188749

Don't Make Me Pull Over!: An Informal History of the Family Road Trip

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