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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Barb Rankin, I have a terrible sense of direction and get lost rather easily unless I am using my Google Maps app, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share what I learned from our family vacations spent traveling on the road, along life’s highway each summer.

For today’s fun fact, let’s talk about the American Automobile Association, known more commonly as AAA.   Here’s a little information from Wikipedia and from AAA about their organization.

Fun Fact:

The American Automobile Association was founded in 1902, in Chicago, Illinois, by nine local automotive clubs that realized they needed a national organization to address motorist concerns.   At that time, automobiles were not in mass production, and were primarily owned by wealthy individuals. Most roads were not suitable for this new expensive mode of transportation.

In 1908, Henry Ford revolutionized the automotive industry, and ownership became more affordable for the masses. Reflecting the increasing popularity of “motor touring,” AAA issued its first domestic tour book in 1917 and in 1926 published its first series of tour books, issued the first modern-style AAA road maps, and began rating tourist accommodations.

AAA has pushed hard for toll-free improved highways and for highway beautification programs. Over the years, AAA has been one of the nation’s leading advocates of highway safety.

Today, AAA clubs primarily provide emergency road services to members. These services include towing, tire changes, and battery replacement. AAA also provides discounts on many goods, services and tourist attractions to their members.

AAA has reciprocal arrangements with a range of international affiliates. In general, members of affiliates are offered the same benefits as members of the AAA while traveling in the United States, and AAA members are offered equivalent benefits while traveling in the territory of the affiliate. Their international affiliates include ARC Europe, encompassing the leading European clubs, the Royal Dutch Touring Club in the Netherlands, and the Canadian Automobile Association in Canada.

Before the advent of map apps on smart phones, AAA was known for its TripTik booklets, which were travel maps that provided a route for your automotive trip. Nothing said “summer road trip” like the neatly bound paper booklet from your local AAA office that highlighted your preferred route, areas of road construction, and visitor points of interest along the road for your family vacation. The TripTik is electronic now – I’m not certain if you can get paper copies anymore. Oh – but the fun of flipping pages as you traveled along the way.

What I Learned Yesterday:

It’s summer in the Northern Hemisphere! This is the time when many families take a summer vacation. It’s also a time to visit family, friends, to explore new places and to make special memories that can last a lifetime.

My mom worked for Pan American World Airlines back in the day when flight attendants were called “hostesses” or “stewardesses.” She spoke both Spanish and Portuguese, and flew on the South and Central American routes. Needless to say, she loved to travel.

But it began earlier than that. Mom grew up in Oklahoma, and her parents were originally from Illinois, so her family used to get in their car and drive back to Illinois to visit their relatives at holidays and during the summer. Her mother’s favorite aunt and cousins lived in Los Angeles, California, and the family would periodically drive there as well, stopping to visit other relatives along the way. One uncle lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and another oversaw some of the irrigation canals in Mesa, Arizona, so they had places to stop along the way. I have an old picture of my mother, her brother, her mother, and the favorite aunt and sitting on the beach wall in the LA area in the late 1920’s. She learned early in life how easy it was to travel by car and how you stop and see the sights along the way.

When mom worked for the airlines, she lived with fellow flight attendants and when they had vacation time, they hopped in the car and off they went. Mom visited Colorado and explored other western states. She simply loved to drive and to travel.

My father died when my brother and I were very young, and my paternal grandmother was afraid that my mom would remarry and Granny would never see her grandson again. We lived in Florida and she lived in California, so we had the entire United States between us. She actually tried to convince my uncle to take us, the grandchildren, away from mom so that he and his wife could raise us in California. He refused to have any part of that scheme, but he did tell mom. On the other side of the family, mom’s parents tried to convince her to move back to Oklahoma so they could help take care of the kids – us. Mom put her foot down and said “no” to both groups of people. She said her home was in Miami and that’s where we were all staying.   End.Of.Discussion.

However, Mom had a strong sense of family, doing the right thing, and compromise. And so began our annual summer road trips. We drove to Oklahoma every year, and then on to California every other year beginning when I was five years old. We received “survivor” flying privileges from Pan Am when I turned 12, and then we flew to California. But for many years, I looked forward to our annual adventure.

In the early years, when my brother and I were still young, either my grandmother or great aunt would make the trip with us to California. But as we got a little older, it was just the 3 of us on the road. Before we set out each summer, Mom would take the car to the shop and make sure everything was in working order. She would head over to the AAA office to pick up maps, guide books listing motels, restaurants and attractions, and our TripTiks. The route was always highlighted in an orange or green marker, and in the back of the TripTik there was a travel log, where you could note how far you traveled each day, where you stopped, how much you paid for gas, each meal, and your lodging. This booklet became a mini-diary of your daily activities and your trip.

As the older child, I became the navigator. I had to pay attention to the TripTik and tell mom what roads to take and where to turn. I also used my math skills to keep our expense records in the log. We had to watch our spending, so I tracked where the money went. I felt proud to have been given that responsibility, and was pleased to be helping mom on the trip.

During the long stretches when we remained on the same road and there was nothing to see (such as driving across Texas or the desert), mom had Travel Bingo games for us to play as we watched for road signs or other things you would see while driving, such as trains, birds, roadside signs, bridges, etc. We would see how many different license plates we could see in an hour, and write them down. We would play naming games, beginning with the first letter of the alphabet. We were encouraged to use our imagination to keep busy – and to try to keep us kids from picking at each other so mom could drive.

We probably spent the night in motels or inns for less than 20% of any trip, as we normally stayed with relatives. My grandfather had a huge, close-knit family that was spread out literally from coast to coast and all points in between. We visited so many relatives growing up, and I learned so much about them, that when I began creating genealogy charts much later in life, it was easy to recall the information and to record their stories. I also had a lot of pictures of each relative because who didn’t want to pose with a couple of cute kids?

And we did more than that. Mom got to travel and see things as well, and her enthusiasm was catching. My fondest memories are of the simple things we did – panning for diamonds in Arkansas; visiting old glorious mansions in Louisiana; fishing in a Colorado stream and feeding the chipmunks; picking cotton in a field somewhere in the south; eating pie at a favorite inn overlooking the Pacific Ocean; watching the salmon jumping as they moved upstream in Washington; seeing dinosaur bones in Colorado and Utah; visiting our country’s national parks.

We explored. We took old country roads, dirt roads, gravel roads. We saw people really living in many different circumstances and in many different places. We learned about our country. We learned about our family. We lived.

Here’s what I learned.

Well, I never did learn directional skill sets, and I’ll always be dependant on a map or an app. I can still get turned around and lost in heartbeat.

But I have learned that have my mom’s desire to travel and explore. Whether it was inherited or simply learned from her, I don’t know. But it has made me curious and inquisitive.

It helped me to feel confident about striking out on my own and being independent.

I learned that I don’t have to follow the crowd on the main road – I can take the path less traveled.

I’ve learned to keep my eyes open to what is around me. To try new things. To savor what I’ve tried.

What about you? What memories are you making? What new things are you exploring?

I hope you enjoy your summer vacation!

I’m Barb Rankin and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.

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