Wyoming Or ... Busted?

My parents had a brilliant idea for a family vacation one year. It was the summer of 1981. I had just graduated from high school, and my father's family had organized a family reunion at the old dairy farm where my dad grew up, and we had decided we would take a road trip. These were typically the type of vacations that we took as a family.....driving, seeing wonderful sights along the way, usually with room and board at the end of the journey. These trips made for great memories for me and my two younger siblings.

On this particular year , my parents decided it would be fun to rent a large motor home to drive across the United States. We rented it from a private owner. The deposit was paid, and we all eagerly awaited the date that we would leave. When the day came to pick up the motor home, we were informed that the previous people to rent it had not yet returned from their trip. Mom and dad were agitated to say the least, as this delay cut into our vacation time. Two more days passed before the motor home was returned and we could pick it up for our vacation. As my father rounded the corner in that motor home, all I could think was that was the UGLIEST motor home I had ever seen. It chugged and belched all the way down the street. Picture, if you will, Cousin Eddie in Christmas Vacation. He parked it in front of the house, and we went inside to see what it was like. The bathroom reeked, and the refrigerator smelled like many days of spoiled food. On the large rear window was a big decal with a plastic hand on a spring that waved when the motor home was in motion. We cleaned and sanitized it, packed it with food and sodas, pots and pans, sleeping bags and the clothing necessary for our trip. Around 8 pm that evening we set out on our trip.

Dad drove all that night to make up for lost time, only stopping briefly in a rest area to take a quick cat nap. By morning we had made it to the Grand Canyon. We spent a couple of days there marveling at it's beauty, and then on to the Great Meteor Crater. Pushing on from there we traveled to the Four Corner states of Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico and took the obligatory photo standing on the flat concrete marker. On into Colorado after that, admiring the grandeur of the magnificent Rocky Mountains. We bounced, chugged, puffed and backfired our way across the interstate, laughing at the kooky camper that was taking us on our journey. It was when we got to Wyoming that it all went wrong. Very wrong.

My dad drove over a pothole in the road and we heard a crashing, thumping sound. The old motor home would move no more....it had lost it's rear axle. How we weren't killed we will never know. Still here we were, stuck on the road in "Middle of Nowhere" Wyoming. Luckily my father had brought along a CB radio. My children have never heard of citizen band radios, but back then they were all the rage in the days before cell phones and text messaging. Even songs about them were popular on the radio, so we were very grateful my dad had thought to buy one before the trip. He got on the radio and tried to summon help from someone....anyone....and then he got an idea. He got my mother to get on the radio!! "Help, please help us!! Our motor home has broken down in the middle of nowhere!".

A female voice in peril instantly got more attention from the various truckers and other drivers out there with CB radios. The first to arrive however was not a big rig trucker. It was a little old man with two little old ladies in a pickup truck. They were as sweet as apple pie and took great pity on this family with the broken down motor home. Not to mention my little brother, David, who broke their heart with the story of how we were on our way to visit his brother Jason, who had been seriously injured in a fire on the east coast. David failed to mention to them that Jason was his "pretend" brother....the story of the fire born from David's own imagination. The old man and two women took my dad into the nearest town, Creston Junction, to find some help. The rest of us waited in the motor home by the side of the highway.

After what seemed like an eternity, help finally arrived for us in the form of a piece of farm harvesting equipment. Exactly what type of farm equipment this was I don't know, but it had a big glass cab on the top of it and we all squeezed into it and chugga chugga chugged down the road to Creston Junction. This little town, Creston Junction was such a tiny town, that if you blinked on the road you would miss it. Still it had a restaurant and a motel, and a mechanic. The motor home was towed in, and we moved into the local motel for a couple of days. Eventually they were able to determine they could get the parts for the motor home....in two weeks! Needless to say, that was a defining moment in the panic level of my parents. They were sure that we were going to be stuck in that town forever, with their teen daughters having to marry toothless men in overalls.

But sanity did come. It came in the form of a mustard colored 1973 Gran Torino station wagon with a FOR SALE sign in the window and Pennsylvania license plates.. ugly as can be, but in good shape, with decent tires. For $700 in cash, the pink slip was in my father's hands. We handed out all the pots and pans and food to a local family there in Creston Junction who had been kind to us, and hit the road. We were more than happy to leave behind the broken down motor home deathtrap.　

In spite of the setback, that vacation was one of the best trips I ever took as a kid. We visited with family, saw many landmarks along the way, and I got to witness firsthand the ingenuity of two parents in crisis.

I drove that Gran Torino station wagon for the first year of college. As ugly as it was, it got me from point A to point B without any problems. Hearing the name Gran Torino brings up memories of that trip and I have to laugh...just as I do whenever someone mentions to me they would like to rent a motor home for a vacation. I always tell them....don't pass through Creston Junction, Wyoming!!!