Like Willie Nelson sings, "On the Road Again." By 6:30 in the morning, Pop and I were pulling out of Sun City Center, Fla., on our Lap of America, after a quick complimentary breakfast of juice, fruit, muffins and coffee at the hotel, and heading up the Interstate. The difference this time was that we were heading north and soon would turn west and be heading home.
We had picked up some flowers the night before, and north of Tampa, on yet another absolutely clear day, we stopped off at the National Cemetery where my mother's ashes are buried and left them, along with a few prayers. Cemeteries in the morning are very quiet and peaceful places, with only the sound of birds and a far-off sprinkler disturbing the serenity.
Just north of Ocala, we again diverted from the green Magic-Marker route line that the Auto Club had provided for us, and cut down Florida State highways and angled toward the Panhandle. We were riding through northern Florida horse country, and it was both scenic and peaceful with its green grass pastures and oak trees surrounded by white board fences.
Like many other places in the South, purple, white, yellow, red and blue wildflowers grew beside the road, and Spanish moss hung off the trees. In one place we crossed the Suwannee River, the same river made famous by song, or at least that's what the sign claimed.
"Watch out for radar traps," Pop warned as we approached little Florida towns on the four-lane state highway with a 65 m.p.h. speed limit that suddenly dropped to 35 m.p.h. at the town's border. Pop said that even though the traps in these little towns were well publicized, there were still enough tourist dollars about to be snagged, and that there was still a police cruiser at each end of town.
We came to the town of Perry, Fla., and Pop told me how he'd crashed his 1947 Oldsmobile there; that was his first automobile accident.
"Woman turned right in front of me," Pop said. "There were four of us in the car, we'd gone down to an American Legion meeting in Miami and were on our way back to Cincinnati. Luckily, none of us were hurt, and we took the car to a garage and I asked them to just fix it just enough so that it could be driven, and then we all took a train back to Ohio. I came back down on the train in a few weeks and drove the wrecked Olds home and fixed it back in Cincinnati. That was the only non-Chrysler product I've owned.
"My first car was a 1936 Dodge Business Coupe," Pop went on. "Then I owned a succession of other Dodges until I bought the Olds."
"Why'd you buy an Oldsmobile?" I asked.
"I got a deal on it. When I sold it, I bought a 1953 Dodge with a Hemi - you remember that car, don't you? We still had it when we moved to California."
That got us to talking about car trips. The first major car trip Pop had made was the one in the Olds to Miami. I remembered a number of summer vacation trips as a child from Cincinnati up to the Thumb of Michigan to visit my mother's relatives. Then, in 1955, we had been transferred to Los Angeles from Chicago, and we took the long ride down the Mother Road, Route 66.
Once we were living in L.A., we often took driving vacations. I remember a trip up the coast to Mount Rainier when I was in the fourth grade. Another year, we drove first to the Grand Canyon and then hit Bryce and Zion canyons on the way back to L.A.
Pop became involved with the Mobil Gas Economy Run as a driver, and one year the Run went from L.A. to Galveston, Texas; then the next year, to Chicago, Ill.; and then finally, from L.A. to New York, N.Y. its last year. When it came time to deliver the Run cars back to L.A., everyone left at once, and there were a number of professional race drivers taking part. They didn't measure the gas consumed on the return trip.
Pop had also made two or three round trips from Detroit to Tucson, Ariz., delivering cars. He had the trip down to two days each way.
I had also made a number of long car trips, not only as a passenger with Mom and Pop (and little brother Ron, too) on vacation trips, but when I had moved off on my own. I once made the run from Detroit to L.A., looking for employment in advertising.
My second trip to Seattle was by car from Detroit. Then, when I finally moved here, I did it by car. Who else do you know who did it in two-and-a-half round trips by car from Detroit?
Here's a tip when making several trips moving someplace by car. On the first trip, move all your toys because you'll always end up where your toys are.
PPOP AND Icontinued on with our Lap, rejoining the Interstate at Tallahassee. We went through Pensacola and stopped for the night in Mobile, Ala. We had driven 522 miles.
Thanks to our guidebook, we found a hotel right on the edge of Mobile Bay. I walked out on the balcony of our fifth-story room and looked around at the scenery. Right below us at the edge of the bay were a bird feeder, some sort of buoy marker light and a large, very realistic alligator sculpture.
Pop said he knew where there was a good restaurant, and we set out looking for it along the edge of the bay. We drove along and stopped at a place called the Oyster House that wasn't quite like he'd remembered it. Inside, we found out why. The walls were hung with pictures of the place just after Hurricane Katrina had roared through.
That the place was still operating was amazing; Katrina had just about reduced the restaurant to little more than a large pile of rubble. We had a very good dinner there and drove back to the hotel.
I walked back out onto the balcony to take a picture of the sunset, and when I looked down, discovered that the alligator sculpture was more realistic than I had thought. It was completely gone.
The next morning, before we even got started, as he squeegee'd off the car's windows, Pop just bumped into the outside mirror and it peeled back a good-sized patch of skin on his arm. Because he takes blood thinners for his heart, the slightest bump will cause a big bruise, and with his thin skin he has to be very careful.
Then, we had barely gotten started when, at the first fuel stop, as Pop stepped over the filler hose, he caught his foot, tripped and skinned his knee. We broke out the first-aid kit and soon Pop was well covered with big Band-Aids.
All I could think of was Bruce Springsteen's words to "Thunder Road": "The highway's filled with broken heroes on a last chance power drive."
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