Swerving through the seventies : a family boldly leaves its driveway -- Pioneers of the pavement : the long road to the interstates -- Hey, where's everybody going? : Americans set off to discover America -- Packed in like sardines : join us, won't you? -- Smokeys in the bush : dodging cops (and stops) on the interstates -- Time to pass : diversions, directions and discoveries -- Eating up the miles : dining while driving -- Inn and out : motels, hotels and invaders from space -- Heavy metal highways : land yachts, station wagons and "the Thing" -- Through the windshield together : a crash course in seatbelts and safety -- Up, up and away : all roads lead to the airport -- Leaving it all behind : the end of the road for road trips?
Summary:
"A lighthearted, entertaining trip down Memory Lane" (Kirkus Reviews), Don't Make Me Pull Over! offers a nostalgic look at the golden age of family road trips--before portable DVD players, smartphones, and Google Maps. The birth of America's first interstate highways in the 1950s hit the gas pedal on the road trip phenomenon and families were soon streaming--sans seatbelts!--to a range of sometimes stirring, sometimes wacky locations. In the days before cheap air travel, families didn'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 them--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 didn't believe in bathroom breaks. Now, decades later, Ratay offers "an amiable guide ... fun and informative" (New York Newsday) that "goes down like a cold lemonade on a hot summer's day" (The Wall Street Journal). In hundreds of amusing ways, he reminds us of what once made the Great American Family Road Trip so great, including twenty-foot "land yachts," oasis-like Holiday Inn "Holidomes," "Smokey"--Spotting Fuzzbusters, twenty-eight glorious flavors of Howard Johnson's ice cream, and the thrill of finding a "good buddy" on the CB radio. An "informative, often hilarious family narrative [that] perfectly captures the love-hate relationship many have with road trips" (Publishers Weekly), Don't Make Me Pull Over! reveals how the family road trip came to be, how its evolution mirrored the country's, and why those magical journeys that once brought families together--for better and worse--have largely disappeared.
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