Trying to catch up with myself and I am making progress. I’m still behind a couple pages, but I’m beginning to get a flow going again. Rough sketch for today and I should have them shored up by tomorrow. We’ll see what life throws at me. The funny thing about today’s page is I thought it would be a quick and easy page. Then as I’m sketching it out, the idea of the NASA-like narration leading up to when Robyn starts the van hit me and an easy page suddenly filled up quickly. Ah, that’s the creative mind for you!

They’re on their way! The Big Apple will not know what hit them for sure. And our naïve quartet sure as hell won’t know what hit them either. New York is a beast of a city. I’ve been there several times and it surprises me with each visit. Another travel page is next, then they arrive in New York for some fun and games.

“Travelin’ Band” by Creedence Clearwater Revival is just one of those songs that pops into my head whenever I hit the road, especially back in the days when I played at University of Illinois on weekends.

Ever wonder how people did road trips before online maps?
I give you the AAA TripTik!

*For those of you not in the know: AAA stands for the American Automobile Association which is a federation of motor clubs throughout North America. AAA is a privately held not-for-profit national member association and service organization with over 60 million members in the United States and Canada. It helps with stranded motorists and maps for long-distance trips.

First, you went in person to your local office of the AAA and you waited to speak to a human. The AAA human would pull out a little booklet called a TripTik. It was like Google Maps, but printed out. Then they would get out a highlighter and highlight the route along the highway.

I guess you just had to know how to get to the highway from your home. People learned these things back then as kids, through an oral tradition, like our ancestors learned which berries they could eat.

Of course, if you got off the route, you were pretty much lost, so all stops for food, gas, etc. stayed pretty close to the highway. God help you if you missed an exit. This was a common cause of divorce.

From this Twitter thread. Photo Credit from Reddit