âA lighthearted, entertaining trip down Memory Laneâ (Kirkus Reviews), Donât Make Me Pull Over! offers a nostalgic look at the golden age of family road tripsâbefore portable DVD players, smartphones, and Google Maps.
The birth of Americaâs first interstate highways in the 1950s hit the gas pedal on the road trip phenomenon and families were soon streamingâsans seatbelts!âto a range of sometimes stirring, sometimes wacky locations. In the days before cheap air travel, families didnât 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 themâfrom 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 didnât believe in bathroom breaks.
Now, decades later, Ratay offers âan amiable guideâŠfun and informativeâ (New York Newsday) that âgoes down like a cold lemonade on a hot summerâs dayâ (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 âland yachts,â oasis-like Holiday Inn âHolidomes,â âSmokeyâ-spotting Fuzzbusters, twenty-eight glorious flavors of Howard Johnsonâs ice cream, and the thrill of finding a âgood buddyâ on the CB radio.
An âinformative, often hilarious family narrative [that] perfectly captures the love-hate relationship many have with road tripsâ (Publishers Weekly), Donât Make Me Pull Over! reveals how the family road trip came to be, how its evolution mirrored the countryâs, and why those magical journeys that once brought families togetherâfor better and worseâhave largely disappeared.