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.
I always carried a Rand Mcnally ‘Road Atlas’ in the car.
It saved me a lot of miles most times, and ocasionally added a few more, but they were usually interesting ones.
As a younger man with my own car, I mainly traveled within the state of Illinois, so yes, I had a McNally Atlas of Illinois and it got me where I was going. As child in the ’60’s when my parents took us on family trips (to San Jose, CA, Yellowstone Park, and Seattle, WA) during the summers, my Dad always had a AAA TripTik to guide the way. If we weren’t towing the pop-up trailer tent, we’d stay at a Travel Lodge with the sleepy bear logo. Those trips in my Dad’s 1959 Chevy wagon with all six of us in the car for days on end are quite memorable, and despite the aggravation those types of trips can cause in families, they were always fun… at least for me.
She forgot ‘activating comm system’ everyone had a CB in ’77 😉
I’m assuming the squabble over the inflight entertainment system will commence immediately after they hit cruising altitude, the only question will be “8-track, radio or cassette ?” a decked out van like that would probably have all three, or they’d have a portable for whatever it didn’t.
10-4 there good buddie, the CB radio shall make an appearance, but in this case, the band is more concerned with having enough pot on hand as opposed to talking to truckers.
My CB call sign was Gray Seal (after the Elton John song) and my license was KEO1312. I had CB radios from 1971 until 1979. After college, I hung up my CB microphone for the last time. So, I’m 10-10 and on the side.
Gotcha wall-to-wall and treetop tall good buddie, mercy sake’s yer blowin’ the dust outta my speakers, we’re goin’ 10-10 doin’ it to it like Pruitt used to do it to it, we here, we there, we up, we down, we gone !
This apparently wasn’t proper radio procedure for a signals check..not even at 0500, and the “station responding, call the Tower….NOW” message was answered with the proverbial
“Ground, do you know who this is ?”
“Negative, contact the Tower immediately”
“I’ll get right on that, have a nice day while you wait” 🙂
Had every CW McCall album almost before they hit the store racks:)
CB needs an antenna. I would recommend a full 102″ whip mounted on the left rear bumper and tied down to a clip on the front rain rail.
Well, damn, I did forget the whip antenna. Nice catch!
Double whips, alright!
Color me impressed – the days of CB radio needing licenses were a long time back. I’ve got a CB in my car now but I’m a radio exception in several ways – I’ve got an amateur radio license and can work 2 meters or 70cm while mobile as well as CB. KJ7IKX, over.
“…a long time back…” Well, I am 65. I also had to take a test to get my 3rd class license to be a D.J. Then the following year after I took my test, they dropped that requirement. Damn!
The only test I ever took was “can you get through four hours without swearing on air, forgetting an ad/psa or getting the station call letters wrong”
‘Fraid they might try to use MapQuest. So what if it hadn’t been invented then? The right, er, medications, and they might transcend space and time.
And this gang has taken a few… um… medications.
They’ll have to stop for lunch…
That huge monster pickle, the size of four pregnant watermelons, will only go so far once the munchies hit.
From ’74 so this should have been on the finest underground FM stations in the US for their excursion 🙂
Canadian music just didn’t get the airplay it should have down there while we had to play 60% minimum, and if it did nobody knew it wasn’t a US band 🙁
This was their 12th album and very song on the album is a gem but the title track fits here…sort of…if you squint just the right way 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq2xLH-C5Pg
As a HUGE Bachman-Turner Overdrive fan, I completely forget I was really into the Guess Who as well. I’ve completely forgotten about this album, and that is an excellent cut!
Good, it’s been stuck in my head fo a month now, maybe this will dislodge it.
This one IS from ’77 and while it’s not CCR, it’s a good road trip song for a band on the go..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nYvmm0Ofmc
Thanks for sharing! I’ve never heard of that group before and the track picks and gets going as most road trips eventually do.
Also… take note that I’ve change the “medicated” frame to a “comms” frame thanks to your suggestion. Fits a lot better into the NASA jargon.
Try some more of their stuff and if you like them try Prism, their ‘Spaceship Superstar’ from 1977 would definitely fit into a road trip for a band, particularly this one, after ‘Plan 9’ is from Outer Space 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSyYqD9v_wo
The track ‘picks up’ he says, check a live version
The guitarist was named ‘too loud Macleod’ for a reason 😉
Is it just me, or is CF dropping words here and there in the comments ?
I do backspace and rewrite them a half dozen times as I change my mind or remember things, but I usually go back and check the finished version and it looks fine when I hit enter…
Funny thing about the ‘ignition sequence’ I only remember ever having one car you used your left hand to start, a Lada 🙂 The rest all had the ignition on the right or a lockable switch there and a button on the floor.
Being mostly left handed and keeping my car keys in my left pocket I don’t notice anymore but it sticks out here.
Was it made that way for righties ? or was it because the designer of the first one was right handed, like the loading gate for Colt and Ruger Single Action revolvers is on the right supposedly because both Sam Colt and Bill Ruger were lefties ?
Or is it to make it harder for someone to reach in through the drivers window and shut the ignition off or take your keys ?
Who said comics don’t make you think ?
The 1969 Ford Econoline van had the ignition on the left which I have never seen. But I try for accuracy so I drew Robyn starting it with her left hand
Works for me, I don’t remember ever driving one of that year’s models
I’m going to have to start reading something else, there too many things to talk about in this one 🙂
I am going to keep referring you to some much overlooked Canadian music whenever it fits in though 😉
July 8th departure … I remember what happens in 5 days.
Shhh! Don’t get ahead of the class now. (hint, hint)
I used Map Art road maps they have gradients and you found locations by their intersection. Like finding latitude and longitude on a world atlas or using x y axis in math class or vectors. Use the legend to find services. In Ontario the 400 highways are handy to Quebec, Ottawa and Toronto when I took buses to Belleville or Toronto those were their routes. In Belleville I’d be employed by a friend as a flower lady dressed a sexy tuxedo lady in Toronto to see drag shows a big adventure for the less worldly. The trans Canada is the longest route spreading west word to the Pacific Ocean with few if any routes to get lost in. I know they have United States routes and highway to New York if they stay they should reach New York city. Keep Jeff from driving and they’ll make it.
Interstate 80 here in the USA takes you from San Francisco to just outside New York City. I’ve driven it many times from Illinois to New York city and all places in between.
I don’t remember spending much time on that one, US Route 2 from west of Minot to Maine and I-95 down to Boston I could drive in my sleep and probably have a few times 😉
While the Trip Tik has been retired, AAA still has road maps available. They saved me quite a lot of trouble on a trip to Nevada this summer – I really needed to know where to find rest stops in California and the backup paper map had exactly what I needed. Definitely bring along a big folding paper map if you’re leaving your home town.
I don’t travel as much as I used too and I rely way too much on technology. The discussion on this page has convinced me to go buy an Atlas Road map of the Carolinas and surrounding area so if GPS ever fails me in the mountains, I can still get around.
I didn’t think reading a map was a rare or difficult skill, but I’ve got a cousin who just looks blankly at the paper if someone hands her a map. Apparently kids don’t routinely grow up with maps around them these days.
We never needed them when I was a kid, my father always seemed to have ‘been down this road before’ and my younger brother would go to sleep as soon as the wheels started turning but if you woke him up, he always knew exactly where we were and could point the direction we needed to go…we tested him a lot but he never missed. I used to have a pretty good sense of direction but I seem to get turned around a lot since GPS and cell phones became ubiquitous, I blame them 😉
I never use GPS, although if my son is with me we use his phone so we can turn at the wrong light when it tells us to 🙂
There’s just something about trying to refold a map over the steering wheel or keeping it flat on a roadside picnic table in a breeze that a little box on the dashboard doesn’t quite capture.
I didn’t realize you’d started another story! I just caught myself up to where you’re at now, and I definitely can’t wait to see how the Big Apple deals with Plan 9. (Hopefully better than how it dealt with Homer Simpson.)
Well, they will face similar challenges, but at least our gang won’t have their van impounded by the police. Unlike Homer, Bud and the gang will not try to use the toilets in the Twin Towers.
Glad to have you back reading again! it’s been a long time getting over my depression and stuff, but I love drawing this comic and I had to give the gang one more big story before I do retire the comic.