The Great American Road Trip: Don’t Make Me Pull Over by Richard Ratay

Buckle your seatbelts for a nostalgic look back at the golden age of the American road trip!

Part memoir, part history lesson, and 100% entertaining, Richard Ratay’s first book Don’t make Me Pull Over gives you a front seat view of the many family road trips from his youth.

As he explains, road tripping across America in the 70’s was an oftentimes comical adventure. It was a time when cars were big enough that a small child could lay underneath the back window and watch the sky roll by.  Seat belts were optional and there was usually a fight between siblings as to who was gonna sit on the hump. There were no DVD players or cell phones to keep the children occupied. You actually had to come up with your own entertainment. How ever did we survive?

A trip into 70’s pop culture, the history of the drive in, and roadside attractions

Along with Ratay’s personal accounts of his family road trips, Don’t Make Me Pull Over is full of historic tidbits, from the birth of America’s interstate system, to how Howard Johnson’s came about. I’m usually not very interested in history, but I was amazed at all the fun things I learned in this book. I’m not kidding when I say this book is FULL of often overlooked and long forgotten places and things. Rich did not miss one aspect of road tripping here. Even down to the very candy supply he would gather before each trip.

Perhaps it was because I too grew up in the 70’s and while my family did not go on as many road trips as the Ratay family did, I could relate to his account of his Dad’s unwillingness to stop for bathroom breaks (always concerned with “making good time”), coordinating a whole trip around Chicago traffic (definitively a real thing for us Wisconsinites), and the fact that I too can remember taking the prized spot under the back window to watch the clouds go by. This book took me back to those fun days when my family of four would rise before dawn and and make the three plus hour trip to northern Wisconsin every year for our weeks vacation on Big Arbor Vitae Lake. That ride seemed to take forever.

Since Rich grew up and still calls Wisconsin his home, there are a few shout-outs to places right here in my home state. The one that stood out was Mars Cheese Castle and Bong Recreation Area near Kenosha, one of my favorite cities in Wisconsin to visit. I will let you find out for yourself how these places fit into his story!

You will not be disappointed in this first novel by Richard Ratay. Those of us who grew up in the golden age of road tripping will love it for the memories (mid-lifers, I’m talking to you). It was full of “I remember that” moments. That goes for the historical facts as well as the family road trip accounts.

As a travel blogger it appealed to that part of me as I still love to road trip. Just this past April I road tripped it to Kentucky. It’s still cheaper to road trip for the most part. Sure getting in a plane gets you to your destination faster, but there is just something about packing up the car and seeing the good old USA from the road that still is the best.

Thank you to Richard Ratay for writing a book about about one of the great American pastimes…the family road trip.

Thanks for reading. Please subscribe to my newsletter to get every post plus more right to your inbox. Also join me on all my social channels.

Go explore, the world is waiting

Lori

This post contains affiliate links. If you buy through my link, you will be helping me to earn some extra money to support my blog.  All opinions are strictly my own. See my policy and contact page for more info.