America’s upcoming 250th anniversary has had me thinking about how best to celebrate.
I’ve had the pleasure of visiting 40 states and the District of Columbia, many of which I’ve gone to during the time-honored tradition of the Great American Road Trip.
The longest vacation my family ever went on was a cross-country road trip in the summer of 1998. It lasted more than two weeks.
My parents bought a huge 50-state road atlas and plotted a route that covered almost every state west of the Mississippi.
My parents put their queen-size mattress into the bed of my dad’s Ford F-150, which was covered with a new-to-us camper shell. They piled in blankets and pillows, and had me and two of my older sisters load up, and we hit the road.
We were comfortable in the back on the mattress, and we were able to talk to our parents through the sliding rear window of the truck, but I can’t imagine having three children ride in the bed of a truck for thousands of miles was legal. Then again, it was the '90s, so who knows?
The first stop I remember was the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. I recall my dad being extremely excited to see the museum and my 10-year-old self being a little unimpressed as I looked around at the saddles, boots, spurs, stirrups, bridles and endless pictures of horses. We had two horses at home with all that same equipment in our tack shed.
Big whoop, dad.
We drove through the southwestern states, the temperature in the back of the truck rising to an uncomfortable temperature without air conditioning. We kids fought for whose turn it was to stick their face up to one of the two small sliding windows on the camper shell to get a breeze. The odd man out laid sprawled in the middle of the bed yelling “I’m hot!” until it was their turn again.
The next memorable stop was at the Grand Canyon in Arizona, which was breathtaking. My sisters and dad decided to walk halfway down to the bottom of the canyon and back. My parents told me that you had to be 12 to do the walking trail, which I’m just now realizing as a 38-year-old adult was absolutely a lie. I remember waiting with my mom, thoroughly perusing every single item in the gift shop for hours before finally heading back to the truck to read my book until they returned.
My sisters came back giddy with stories of near-death experiences almost being pushed off the edge of the walking trail by mules on the hairpin turns. I was green with envy that I was not allowed to almost die, too.
We then passed through the Hoover Dam on our way to our next stop, Las Vegas, Nevada. My mom, who did not tolerate cursing, became increasingly annoyed as the three of us children yelled “Dam!” with wild abandon for the several hours it took to get through to the other side.
As we pulled into Las Vegas, my dad popped the tailgate and asked, “Who wants to see a million dollars?”
My dad had worked in Las Vegas during his youth, and he knew of a casino that had 100 $10,000 bills in a hanging display behind bullet-proof glass. My dad walked us down the strip to the casino hotel, with my mom grumbling in protest, as she did not approve of either gambling or drinking.
After we got into the hotel, our dad told us to be very quiet and walk quickly while crouched low to the ground as we snuck into the casino portion. We arrived at the display, and we saw the row upon row of $10,000 bills, which dad said were no longer in production. Almost immediately a grumpy man in a suit came over and told us no one under 18 was allowed on the casino floor and promptly threw us out.
Our next big stop was the Sequoia National Park, home to some of the biggest trees on Earth, before heading on to the West Coast to see the ocean in northern California.
I wish I had something profound to say about either beautiful natural wonder, but alas, by that time I was too bored to experience amazement. I had already finished reading the entirety of the Anne of Green Gables series, and my sisters and I were getting a severe case of cabin fever. We did everything we could think of to entertain ourselves.
My sister Becca, who was 9 years older than me, was playing moderator to a spelling bee between me and Kate, who was 6 years my senior.
“Goldie, your word is ‘cat.’ Kate, your word is… ‘partially hydrogenated,’” Becca said while looking at the back of a bag of chips she was snacking on.
“Hey, that’s two words!” Kate protested.
“It’s hyphenated,” Becca lied. I was soon after crowned the spelling bee champion of the Boling family vacation.
As we worked our way through Idaho and Montana, the temperature in the back of the truck turned cold without heat, and we shivered together under every blanket we had in what we dubbed “the cuddle puddle.”
As we arrived at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, we were immediately greeted by bison and elk approaching the truck. Our parents yelled at us to keep our hands inside the vehicle or we’d lose our fingers.
We pulled up at Old Faithful just in time to see it erupt. Which, if I had seen that on day one of our vacation, I’m sure I would have been awed. But being well into week two, I was kind of over it.
It was hot and smelled like rotten eggs.
Yawn.
I do remember some of the thermal pools being quite pretty, although also stinky.
By the time we made it across the state to the Devil’s Tower, we three kids might have managed to grunt and say “Cool” somewhat sarcastically before getting back into the truck. We regularly mentioned the book “The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Vacation.”
The last big landmark we visited was Mount Rushmore, which was fine, but smaller than I expected. I ended up preferring The Crazy Horse Memorial just down the road, which is a monument which was started in 1948 and is still under construction to this day. The 87-foot-tall face of the Oglala Lakota warrior Crazy Horse had been unveiled just weeks earlier.
Over dinner, my mom asked if we could add one more stop before heading home, a quick jaunt out of the way to see the Badlands. She was met with a resounding “No!” from the kids. We were ready to go home.
Before bed at our hotel that night, my mom asked me if I would pretty please agree to come with her early the next morning to the Badlands while my dad stayed at the hotel with my sisters and let them sleep in. I could tell it was important to her and agreed. What seemed like mere minutes later, she was shaking me awake to get into the truck so we could get to the Badlands in time to watch the sunrise.
I wish I could say I have a clear memory of a beautiful sunrise and a meaningful shared experience with my mom. I don’t. I can’t remember it at all. It sure would have been a nice end to this column, though.
I guess my point, if I have one at all, is that perhaps the best way to show America some love this summer is to go on a road trip. Although, hopefully a little shorter than ours, so you don’t run out of wonder before you run out of road trip.