September 1st

I received this email from Dad this morning:

“On this date, September 1, forty three years ago, you, Charles, and I U-hauled ass out of Silver Creek and never looked back. Good moves on the way out West. Never forget the slow climb over the Rockies. Cheers. Dad”

I’ve included an image of a similar 24-foot (7.3 meter) U-Haul truck that my Dad, younger brother, and I rode in during our 6-day drive across the United States from western New York to Northern California along Interstate 80, a distance of 2,527 miles (4,067 km). Much of our route traced the old Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental road made especially for car travel, linking New York City with San Francisco. In 1978, I-80 was still not fully paved in parts of Utah and Nevada so we had to slow to walking speed as we lurched along rutted dirt roads much like pioneers had generations earlier in their Conestoga wagons.

Our truck had no air conditioning and the only concession to any sort of creature comfort was an AM radio that received mostly static once we were west of the Mississippi River. Instead, my Dad sang Clancy Brothers tunes such as “The Mermaid” and “Rosin the Bow” above the hot roar of the huge V-8 engine to keep us entertained during those long days of staring through the windshield at unending miles of road stretching away to the horizon.

The slow climb across the Rockies that my Dad mentions occurred on our 4th day of travel across the country. To prevent speeding, the U-Haul was equipped with a governor which limited how fast the engine could turn over. So, when Dad downshifted our heavily laden truck into first gear as the freeway before us became steeper, we could go no faster than 12 MPH (19 KMH). Dad switched on the truck’s hazard flashers and we crawled – snail-like – hugging the white line ribboned along the right side of the slow lane all day that day as we climbed up, up, up toward the Great Continental Divide.