Category 1 - Longer Reading: Read a Full Length Work of Nonfiction

On Saturday, June 21st, I read Don't Make Me Pull Over: An Informal History of the Family Roadtrip by Rich Ratay. Yes, that's right. I read nearly 300 pages from cover to cover in one sitting.

I discovered this brand new book a few weeks ago when I read a book review/interview with the author. I don't think I'd even finished reading the article when I decided that I needed to read the book, and it quickly moved to the top of my to-read list. It was on subject matter that I knew would interest me, and I was itching for a fascinating nonfiction book to get lost in.

Ratay creates something that is a hybrid of narrative memoir and informative nonfiction. He interweaves stories of family roadtrips he took as a child with research on topics related to his stories.

That was the first thing that captured me about this book: the sheer diversity of related topics. The table of contents gives you a pretty good preview of the path of ideas: the history of developing paved roads and interstates in the US, roadside attractions and dining, highway safety, travel accommodations,  cars themselves, and ultimately the way airline deregulation and progress changed the concept of the family roadtrip forever. I was fascinated by all of these topics that were so common, but that I'd never really thought of in much depth before. And his research was peppered with funny stories to make it enjoyable while informative.

I also loved it because it held so many memories for me. Growing up, my parents couldn't afford to take us on airplanes. But we drove across the country four times before I turned eighteen, thanks to friends and family who moved out west that we wanted to visit. Reading Ratay's book, I couldn't help but remember the Super 8 motel we stayed at in Springfield, MO in 1991 on our way to Phoenix. Or the side trip to Mount Rushmore, which was wholly unimpressive to a 15 year old. Or the 2,400-mile drive home in the back of a Honda Accord with my brother, sitting atop rolled-out sleeping bags and pillows, our Walkmans and boxes of cassette tapes and car games at our feet, a cooler full of soda and lunches on the seat between us, and on top of the cooler a full size Mexican sombrero souvenir that my brother had bought in Nogales.

The trip down memory lane was the point of Ratay's book. His book seems to be a love story to the nostalgia of a bygone era, the classic road-trip days of the 1960's through 1980's. He makes a compelling case for how life is fundamentally different now, which changes the way we vacation and even the way we experience those experiences.

I agree that many people today prefer flying because it gets them more time at their destinations. In fact, a quick google maps search of our first roadtrip even showed me, unasked, how much time I could save by hopping on an airplane.

But I question whether the days of the family roadtrip will ever truly be behind us. I think there will always be families that can't afford to fly, but who still want to give their kids the experiences of seeing the USA. And I hope that kids of Ratay's and my generation, who had these experiences, value them enough to give their own kids the same opportunities. I know I am so thankful that I had parents who, though relatively poor, valued vacation enough to show us the country; my family roadtrips are a huge part of who I've become. In fact, next week my husband and I are taking a roadtrip down south to West Virginia and Tennessee, opting for hours in the car rather than our initial, more expensive, plan to fly to Seattle.

However, one point he makes in his last chapter does seriously concern me. He talks about how, while family road trips today may still exist, they're fundamentally different due to to the nature of today's technology. Almost wistfully, Ratay points out the demise of "the license plate game" or "I Spy" engaging the whole carload. Nowadays, it's more likely that on a long car ride, each child will have his/her own iPad with a movie or game, mom will have on headphones listening to an audiobook, while dad hums along to the radio in isolation. He iterates that today, even when we spend time together as families, we don't really spend time together the way he remembers so fondly with his brothers in the backseat of their Lincoln.

I think he's definitely onto something. Even parents who try to give their kids the experiences of seeing the countryside from a car will need to go the extra mile to make the most of their time together and combat the side-effects of 21st century life.