Are We There Yet?

Bruce Barcott begins his review of Cross Country by Robert Sullivan:

In the summer of 1981 my parents packed my sister and me into our 1973 Gran Torino station wagon and drove, on a route resembling a fishhook, from our home in Ventura, Calif., to Ensenada, Mexico, and then straight up the spine of I-5 to our grandparents’ house in Everett, Wash. Along the way, things happened. The Torino lacked air-conditioning, so we sucked motel ice cubes as we drove the length of California’s broiling Central Valley. My sister and I stared daggers at our father when he vetoed our plan to see the Trees of Mystery, a tourist trap near Crescent City. It was getting late, he said, and we had to make time. The next day the Torino’s transmission blew out near Grants Pass, Ore., and we “made time” sitting in a laundermat waiting for the parts to arrive. Agony in the doing and ecstasy in the telling, the trip has become a central part of our family lore. My sister and I can still crack each other up by muttering, “Trees of Mystery.”

Cross Country is subtitled: Fifteen Years and 90,000 Miles on the Roads and Interstates of America with Lewis and Clark, a lot of bad motels, a moving van, Emily Post, … kids, and enough coffee to kill an elephant.

“Cross Country” tells the story of one such trip: a simple west-to-east crossing that takes the Sullivans from his wife’s cousin’s wedding near Portland, Ore., to New York. Riding with the author in a rented Impala are his wife, his teenage son, his younger daughter and a rooftop luggage pack that threatens to disintegrate at highway speeds. Though technically a travel memoir, “Cross Country” aspires to be much more: a survey of cross-country road trips written with the languid pace and arcane detail that might characterize a six-day drive with a charming, talkative history buff.

Thanks to Veronica for the tip.

And click here for Jill’s take on our own family vacations.