I know. Long time, no see. I’ve been touring, which led me to think about hotels and motels, which I dearly love, short term. With age comes snobbery, or at least a taste for creature comfort, so I do like Fluffy Bathrobe Hotels when I’m lucky enough to stay in them.
But in my youth, I was no Eloise. My family stayed at Quality Inns and Holiday Inns and Travelers Inns, the one with the sleepwalking bear, a once intriguing and terrifying logo. I watched an eclipse of the moon from the second-floor walkway of a Travelers somewhere between Baltimore and Atlanta.
Motels were a luxury. My family often made the 700-plus mile trip between Baltimore and Atlanta in one day, which took about 12 hours. Total. We stopped for gas about three times. (The car was a Ford station wagon, bright red, with a seat in the back, but it was almost always folded down for trips.) Food was eaten on the go, unless one was prone to car sickness, as I was, in which case food was seldom eaten. Yes, my father was obsessed with Making Good Time.
The summer I was 11, we headed north, to Portland, Maine, where my father would put the finishing touches on a book he was writing with a co-author, Donald Hansen. (It was about Edmund Muskie.) We had a dog and two cats at the time, Peppermint and Gali. The cats were placed in cardboard carriers with breathing holes. The second we left the neighborhood, Peppermint began to mewl mournfully and steadily. I think we took her out on I-95, and she shuddered in my sister’s arms. Gali, my cat, was angrier and stealthier. With her teeth and claws, she worked at the space between two of the breathing holes, creating a slightly larger one. We were on the New Jersey Turnpike when her head burst forth. It was like something out a horror film, this angry tortoiseshell cat’s head emerging from the box and the terrible shrieks that followed, as she had accomplished nothing but getting herself stuck. We tore at the cardboard and freed her, and she paced the car for the next seven hours or so.
My father promised a bottle of Moxie to the person who came closest to guessing our arrival time in Maine. I won. My apology to any Moxie fans here, but it wasn’t much of a prize. And, as I recall, it wasn’t even manufactured in New England.
Do people still make Good Time? I know I’m still inclined to try and, in my heart of hearts, I don’t have much respect for anyone over 6 who can’t go four hours without a bathroom break.
I have a hard time even turning back at the end of the block when one of my daughters has forgotten a flip-flop or some such thing. There is this feeling of perpetual motion, as if you can go forever if only you don’t stop.
When I was a kid, however, I found the tedious boredom of car travel nearly unbearable and would force myself to sleep. Now, though I hate city driving, being on the road clears my mind and allows me to touch the imagination I once had — after my wife and daughters have gone to sleep which is usually at the sound of the engine being started.
My father was so obsessed with Making Good Time that he refused to stop for bathroom breaks. We had to synchronize our bladders to the fuel tank. Once, he made us use a plastic toilet for a trip to Florida. Came back to haunt him, though, when it was forgotten upon our return and simmered nicely one summer day. He was taking a customer out to lunch, opened the car door and nearly killed the guy with the smell.
Oh, just wait until you are a little older. That four hours without a bathroom break will be but a memory. Besides, for safety’s sake, the driver should take a quick break at least every two hours.
How can you take a familiar trip without trying to make or break a Good Time record? We do an annual trip from Baltimore south of 550 miles. The completion of more and more interstate roads has shortened the time considerably, but I doubt that we will ever top the trip of a couple of years ago. Of course, a ticket just one time would lengthen future trips! J
Linda’s comments reminded me that my father never filled the gas tank when we were on the road because he knew there would have to be a bathroom break in-between. In “olden times” there was no such thing as Rest Areas or McDonald, etc., for pit stops. J
I’m incorporating the phrase “Fluffy Bathrobe Hotels” from now on. It’s so spot on.
I remember driving from Hartford to Cape Code every summer; I don’t recall any obsession with time. We stayed at the same place every year; an okay/nice motel, i think maybe even witha ittle kitchenette. And a pool, which I jumped into every morning. I stll remember the feeling of putting on a not quite dry bathing suit. And the penny candy stores – where, yes, things really did still cost a penny. And going to the drive in in our pajamas in case we fell asleep on the back seat.And how hysterically funny tongue twisters were to my sister and me on the rides home when we were oh so tired.
Hey, she was striped.
We also had pets named: Dreamy (Scottish terrier), Chew Moon (beagle), Midnight (cat, mother of Peppermint), Dixie (cat).
As an an adult, my pets have included two cats, Pip (named by another) and Travis (named for Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver).And I had a greyhound named Dulcie, short for Dulcinea, but also an allusion to Dulcie Lungaarde, from the books written by Lenora Mattingly Weber.
You had a kitty named Peppermint. That is precious.
Very sweet names.
Let’s see…
I had a calico I named Kallie, and still have a black cat named 8-Ball.
I had a male grey cat, who I named Linus. I thought of this when I was watching MURPHY’S ROMANCE — the scene where the ex-husband introduces his twin babies, Larry and Linus. Linus was very friendly, went into neighbor’s houses without being invited, and weighed 16 pounds before he was a year old.
Our present line-up includes 8-Ball, a fat grey cat named Sam (by my son), a black tabby named Leo (by my wife, for the guy on WEST WING and because my wife is Leo). And we have a beautiful seal point Siamese we call Willow, and one of her eight kittens we call Cosmo.
Hi Andi! We thought about going by the West Wing theme, since we had a Sam, but Willow just wasn’t a CJ.
We don’t have pets, but a massive heap of soft toys/stuffed animals and I admit to naming Sam the gorilla for Sam Seaborn of West Wing. But your wife naming the cat Leo trumps that. John Spencer is _amazing_.
Andi
We had unimaginative names for the cats when we were kids: first Fluffy, then Puffy, then Muffy. Of course they were only replaced when they got hit by a car, which was often in our neighborhood. But then Nimrod came around, and I had Thisbe for almost 20 years. Now it’s Eloise (yes, for THAT Eloise, she’s just as naughty) and Hemingway, who is, as his namesake, macho but just a little gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that).
My father also Made Good Time and we once went from New Haven to Savannah in 15 hours. Today it’s very hard to Make Good Time because traffic seems much worse. It took us 5 hours to get to Philadelphia in April (that dreadful New Jersey Turnpike!), but we did make it to Montreal in 7 1/2 hours, although there’s not much north of Albany to get in the way.
Leaving at 4 a.m. is a very good way to Make Good Time.
And, yes, I speak from (sick, neurotic) experience.
I like both Making Good Time and Fluffy Bathrobe Hotels — but somehow the latter never happen to me on road trips that involve the former. Age and better hydration habits make frequent pit stops de rigeur, but I still managed to get from Charleston, WV to Kansas City, MO in 15 hours without killing either myself or my daughter
I’m with JJ — the main thing on road trips is just to keep on going; the payoff is time to let big parts of the mind roam far beyond the confines of the car or the boundaries of the freeway.
It was Tracy, CA to Las Vegas, NV (a mere 519 miles, give or take), and then back home (Las Vegas to Tracy), but it was for Bouchercon, and I made the trip home on less than three hours of sleep after drinking with the RAM crowd which included John Connolly.
Solo drive, non-stop (except to fill the tank and pick up snacks and coffee, consumed on the road):
Columbia South Carolina to Toronto Ontario. Oh, yeah…and two stops along the way (North Carolina and Ohio) to collect speeding tickets.
I’m not sure how macho that makes me, but at the tender age of 20, it sure made me FEEL like a man.
Los Angeles to New York in 60-some hours.
I hope my boys grow up smarter than I am.
I know people who find the 3 to 3-1/2 hours between Baltimore and Richmond hard to endure. Those of us responding to this memory project obviously like the supposedly open road. J
My mother actually used to pack a potty in the car when we drove the station wagon to Florida when I was a kid. But I don’t think any of us actually ever brought ourselves to use it. Although with all the coffee my dad used to drink, I’m amazed we didn’t stop more. And, yes, Laura, we used to leave at 4 a.m., too, with our pillows and blankets in the back of the station wagon. With seat belt laws today, we can’t get away with that anymore and my poor daughter has to get a crick in her neck sleeping sitting up.
Okay, let’s get macho. What’s the most you’ve driven in one day, with or without a partner to share the drive.
Me, solo: Chicago to Little Rock, when I was 22.
Me, with partner: Oxford, MS, to Baltimore and we didn’t leave until noon because we HAD to see Faulkner’s house.
Austin to Laurenburg, NC in something like 20 hours — I don’t remember much of the last four hours or so — so my girlfriend could break up with me.
Solo: Atlanta to Miami. 12 hours door to door. 1982.
With driving partner and a 4-year-old child: New Haven to Frostburg, Maryland. 8 1/2 hours, but felt like 16 with the whining. Since then, we break up trips into four hour legs.
(I can’t count the 12 hours to Roanoke, Va., with my dad during college because he wouldn’t let me drive.)
I do not recall how long it was from Albany to Chicago non-stop with two other people, my friend Linda and my then boyfriend Andy (yes, I’ve dated TWO count ‘em TWO guys named Andy in my life). We drove there to work on a Star Trek convention. I do recall that I insisted on waking both friends up as i was driving through Gary, Indiana at dawn because I had never seen anything quite so ugly. Dunno what it’s like now; it was 1975 and oh god.
Two cross-country trips but not non-stop and not alone. Since I am Laura’s polar opposite and am so not a morning person, I usually drove the afternoon shift; not the best move when you’re driving from DC to San Francisco. There comes a point where there is just no way to drive that the sun isn’t in your eyes, directly or reflecting off the hood.
Andi
I got a “fluffy” terrycloth bathrobe for Christmas. Does that make mine a “fluffy bathrobe” house?
Jackson and Battle Creek, Michigan–where our families lived–seems to be the worst possible distance from eveywhere we’ve lived since leaving Michigan after college–Ithaca, NY; State College, PA and Columbia, MD. It’s too far to do comfortably in a day and too short to justify staying overnight. It was about 12hrs. from Ithaca, 9 hrs. from State College and 10hrs. from Columbia. To make “good time,” I used to eat a packed lunch while filling the gas tank (pre self-service days)–”Eat here and get gas?” I also had one of my best times interrupted by a ticket in Ohio, and paying the ticket has discouraged me from the “good time” syndrome.
My obsession was getting good mileage in our 1973 Datsun B-210–plastic seats, no a/c. This produced my son’s revealing vacation “share and tell” item in the 2nd or 3rd grade–”My dad can reach back and hit us while he’s driving the car.”
Our trips have given our now grown children valid grounds for telling their kids on trips–”If you think this is bad, you should have gone with Mike in his hot little car.”
My macho entries?
Solo: Columbia, MD to Erie, PA and return in one trip or
Columbia to Raleigh, NC ” or
Columbia to Ithaca ” .
WIth partner: Probably Harbor Springs, MI (check the map, near the tip of the Lower Peninsula) to Ithaca, NY non-stop. We had saved some money for a motel, but decided to drive through and use it for groceries.
Travelodge — yes!
I saw the bear’s sad little silhouette on a now shuttered motel in Memphis just this morning.
Macho trips:
Solo – Auburn Alabama to Charleston, WV and the aforementioned Charleston, WV to KC; those were about 15 hours each. With others — Albuquerque, NM to San Marcos, TX. That was fun, because we were 18 hours in the car, 36 hours in San Marcos, and another 18 hours back again.
I remember when I moved from Albuquerque to Charleston. I went ahead of my then-husband and daughter and decided to do the trip in 3 easy days of 500 miles (10 hours) each. The folks in WV were shocked and amazed that I could drive so far in one day. And here I thought I was taking it easy
2000, I was 46. 16 hours from Fenton Mich. to Charleston S.C., where I almost got mugged. But they were polite crackheads.
–john–
St. Paul, Minn. to Ann Arbor, Mich., in about 12 hours, a little over a year ago, after I spent nearly two weeks in a job tryout — which made me miss Mother’s Day — and then didn’t get it. My fury was my goad, although it didn’t do much good in Chicago rush-hour traffic.
And Laura, this chain may have had different names in different parts of the country, but the hotel with the sleepwalking bear was the Travelodge. At least in Ohio.