Hold-Up

One of the few times our trailer was used in a purely recreational way was a trip to Yellowstone National Park. I was disconcerted by the geographic instability of the place. I was 4.  My Mother, however, was convinced that the lethargic beggars that held up traffic for free food during the day turned into bloodthirsty marauders at night.

Feeding bears from cars continued at Yellowstone until 1970.

Give up. Surrender. Back Down.

In his military history Dad said,  "I had navigated to  London, Paris and Calcutta; to South America, Europe, Africa and Asia; to the islands of the Atlantic from Greenland to Ascension Island. I had navigated to Hawaii, Philippines, Okinawa, Japan and the islands in between.

I can't number the times I looked out the window after flying many hours over the ocean, with nothing but celestial bodies to fix my position, to see a tiny speck of land that I expected to see, when I expected to see it. That tiny speck was usually covered with clouds and invisible until a few miles away."

Terrestrial navigation of the new Interstate Highways, however, often proved to be more of a challenge.
More than once he found himself facing the two small red "Wrong Way" signs at the top of an off ramp he had driven up in error.

Here we see the challenge of backing the trailer down a long curving ramp.

As he neared retirement from the Air Force Dad left behind his years in the Chevy wilderness and treated himself to a brand new 1965 Buick Wildcat. It was a sweet ride. He probably thought he was going to be earning enough selling mutual funds to make the payments. Think again.

All Traffic Must Exit

Having taken part in the Army's 1919 Transcontinental  Motor Convoy which followed the Lincoln Highway from Washington, DC to San Francisco and later being exposed to the superior German Autobahn, President Dwight D. Eisenhower saw the need for a Federal Highway System that would link American Air Force Bases. As the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways was being constructed and sometimes for years afterwards your stretch of the newborn road would abruptly end and you would find yourself back on an undivided two-lane in Wolf Lodge or Ritzville or Tremonton.

Sputnik

I was born the son of a Warrior (both Hot and Cold) the same year as Sputnik.