road trips

Oh, the places we went (without Siri)

~ MaryG ~ 34 Comments

What’s the best way to explore a new city?

I just gotta point out that before smart phones, “exploring a new city” was completely different. Young people have no idea.

First, if you were driving there, you could get completely lost just finding the city, because you had to rely on maps—fold-out paper maps or atlases (books of maps). There was no Siri, there was no Google Maps, there was no MapQuest or Waze. There was no phone in your car. There were road signs and your own God-given sense of direction.

In the olden days, the absolute best way to explore a new city, was to meet up with a friend (or a friend of a friend) who lived there. If you were lucky, they’d let you crash on their couch. At night, they would take you to some local dive bar where you met their friends and got a feel for what it was like to actually live in their city.

In the day, you wandered around visiting record stores and coffee shops and tourist sites that you’d heard of by word of mouth (talking to other humans).

My friend Julie and me kicking around San Francisco in 1988. We stayed with a high school friend of hers. We’d driven up from LA where we’d also stayed with a friend in West Hollywood. Fortunately, it was hard to get lost on that drive up from LA. We knew if we kept the Pacific Ocean on our left, we’d get there eventually.

Thursday Doors—Squeeze Burger, Sacramento

~ MaryG ~ 3 Comments

I went looking for a door photo for Dan’s Thursday Doors and found this:

If someone asked me yesterday if I’d ever been to Sacramento, the capital of California, I would’ve said no.

But I was wrong. My high school friend Susan and I took our 11-year old sons on an epic Northern California road trip in the summer of 2012 and stopped at the famous Squeeze Burger (formerly Squeeze Inn) in Sacramento. We were on our way to her house in Lake Tahoe from Oakland.

Upon further research, I found pictures of the famous cheese-skirted burgers online, which look familiar.

We were in the second Sacramento location (now closed), which featured the original tiny Sacramento storefront as a booth in the restaurant. Perfect for two boys traveling with their moms.

This is why pictures matter people. By the time you hit 60, you will not remember half the stuff you did in your life.

Graduation & Audiobooks

~ MaryG ~ 12 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What sacrifices have you made in life?
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We’re headed to upstate NY today for my son’s college graduation!

As previously reported, I’m very proud of him and he’s generally been a joy to raise, but I’ve certainly made a few sacrifices along the way.

I’ve checked-out the only four audiobooks from the library that were available and short enough to finish during the 6-hour car ride. If anyone has read or listened to any of these books and has thoughts, please let me know.

Bon weekend!

Leaving on a jet plane

~ MaryG ~ 11 Comments
Daily writing prompt
You’re going on a cross-country trip. Airplane, train, bus, car, or bike?
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If we’re talking about my country (the U.S), I’m going on an airplane. The days when I may have fantasized about doing a Jack Kerouac/Hunter S. Thompson/Bob Dylan/Route 66 Great American Road Trip are over. It always sounded cool and like something you should do at least once in your life, but I never did it. I once drove from Massachusetts to Florida with a boyfriend. We had no particular plan. It was spring break and we just wanted to get warm, so we headed south. I think we made it to Daytona Beach before heading back.

Driving all the way to California from Massachusetts would’ve been a great adventure in my twenties, but I won’t be adding it to my bucket list now. I’m too old for that shit. And a bus would be even worse.

Actually, my mother took a bus from Massachusetts to California with two of her friends (one from high school and one from college) in 1960, between her junior and senior year of college. This was before women could get birth control or hold a credit card in their own name. They got jobs in Los Angeles and stayed for the whole summer, then took the bus back. They just wanted to see the country and have an adventure. I’ve always been impressed that my grandmother allowed her to plan that trip and that she had the guts to go.

Los Angeles in 1959 (photo by Railroad Jack on Flickr)
My mother in the 1950s

I suppose you could take a train across the United States, but nobody I know has done that, so perhaps it’s not that great of an experience.

Six years after my mother’s adventure, I was born. Two years after that, Peter, Paul and Mary wrote Leaving on a Jet Plane. I always loved that song.