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| A view of the Reptile Gardens parking lot outside of Rapid City, S.D. in 1957, about six years before I went there. I was surprised to learn that this roadside attraction has flourished and is now a respected reptile and amphibian zoo. www.reptilegardens.com |
All indicators say that summer is here — with a vengeance — and when I was a kid, that always meant "road trip."
My dad took us to national parks all over the west, which you can read about here. My brother, sister and I saw some amazing things, developed an affinity for nature that we've never lost, and became a family. What we didn't do, because my father wouldn't allow it, was stop at roadside attractions.
I can't blame him— he lived through the Depression on a farm in Vermont, and had to leave school in the eight grade to work and help support his family. He wasn't a tightwad — if it was worthwhile, he spent the money — but he knew what was a waste of his hard-earned dollars.
So — entrance to national parks, well worth the money; paying to see snakes in the Reptile Gardens outside of Rapid City, S. D., not so much. Dad took us to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, even buying us the rather pricy boxed lunches in their underground cafeteria, but our entreaties to see the Trees of Mystery near Klamath, CA fell on deaf ears.
It wasn't until I traveled alone with my grandparents — Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop— that I was able to visit places like the Reptile Gardens, Wall Drug, and Dinosaur Park. Yep, grandparents are pushovers, and they were driving me back to California after I spent a fun-filled summer in New Jersey with them. We were in some huge early 1960s car without air-conditioning.
Pop-Pop had found some weird contraption that you filled with ice and plugged into your cigarette lighter. A little fan blew air over the ice and was supposed to keep you cool. It didn't work so well in the Badlands in August, but it tried. Those were the days when you had to plan to cross the Mojave desert at night because practically nobody's car had air.
As near as I can figure, we had driven Interstate 90. It was a trip filled with Burma Shave signs, lots of stops for ice cream, and the ever-present radiator bag.
These bags hung in front of your radiator to keep it cool. They were flax or burlap-covered rubber bags filled with water that you soaked first.
They often had ads on them, which made them cheap. Yes, Jackson Browne fans, bags just like the cover of his first album, often mistakenly called "Saturate Before Using."
That was an instruction for use, not the title.
Along with radiator bags, travelers often had bumper stickers slapped onto their cars advertising whatever roadside attraction (or "tourist trap," as my father called them) they had stopped at. When you got out of your cars, workers came out and plastered your car with stickers front and back, and you were a rolling advertisement.
Our family made many trips across country, and over the years some states must have made this practice illegal, because the attractions started wiring them on so they could be easily removed, should you care to.
You would see roadside signs starting about 100 miles away, and then you'd notice the bumper stickers. That's when you starting begging, even though it knew it wouldn't do you any good. Out family sometimes got to stop at Howard Johnson's for lunch, but never a Stuckey's, that home of the Pecan Log Roll.
So the trip with the grandparents was great. I got them to stop for lunch at Wall Drug, in Wall, S. D. still in business today. According to their website, the owner were devout Catholics who moved their business to Wall because from a smaller town because they wanted to go to Mass every day. They hit on the idea of luring people off the interstate with offers of free ice water.
It grew into a tacky tourist spot of epic proportions, with signs starting about 500 miles out, and the bumper sticker brigade not missing a car with their "Where the heck is Wall Drug?" stickers. The place has a stunning collection of jackalopes, as you can see on the site, as well as a giant one you can take your picture riding. During lunch, I hid my retainer under a napkin, so it wouldn't gross out fellow diners. Fifty miles down the road, I realized that I had left it behind, and we had to return for my expensive dental device.
I was not my grandparents' favorite grandchild that day.
We went to Mt. Rushmore, and the Reptile Gardens. At that time, it was a small set of cinderblock buildings. On one side, giant tortoises roamed among agates and other rocks strewn about a stretch of desert you could walk through and take home, for a small price.
Inside the reptile house, you could look down into a huge cement square hole in the ground. Inside was a platform where a man stood with scores of snakes crawling all over him and the enclosure.
The man had a shepherd's crook, and when the snakes crawled too high up the wall, he would use the hook, and flick them off. It was a little disconcerting to see venomous snakes hightailing it up the wall towards you. In a photo on their website from 1949 shows the same idea: a square of people with snakes in the middle.
By the 1960s, they had made it a little safer, probably at the request of their insurance company. I'm not sure what it looks like today. I hadn't thought about the place in years, and was rather shocked to see how it had grown. I'm sure there are parts of the trip I've forgotten, but rattlesnakes climbing a wall is indelibly etched into my memory.
I learned plenty of things from my father, but not stopping at tourist traps is not one of them. I lived in Simi Valley and used to ride my bike to spend time with Grandma Prisbrey at Bottle Village. I loved that place like no other, and was thrilled that it was right in the closest thing I have to a hometown.
And just like my grandparents, I have little resistance when it comes to my granddaughter Charlotte. If she wants to stop to see giant gunnite dinosaurs or the world's biggest ball of string, I'm going to stop the car.
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| A view of the Reptile Gardens today, complete with the Sky Dome on the right. |
Dad would take us to a state fair or the Ice Capades, but we avoided the Midway and weren't allowed to play games, or buy plastic gimcrack souvenirs.
So — entrance to national parks, well worth the money; paying to see snakes in the Reptile Gardens outside of Rapid City, S. D., not so much. Dad took us to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, even buying us the rather pricy boxed lunches in their underground cafeteria, but our entreaties to see the Trees of Mystery near Klamath, CA fell on deaf ears.
It wasn't until I traveled alone with my grandparents — Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop— that I was able to visit places like the Reptile Gardens, Wall Drug, and Dinosaur Park. Yep, grandparents are pushovers, and they were driving me back to California after I spent a fun-filled summer in New Jersey with them. We were in some huge early 1960s car without air-conditioning.
Pop-Pop had found some weird contraption that you filled with ice and plugged into your cigarette lighter. A little fan blew air over the ice and was supposed to keep you cool. It didn't work so well in the Badlands in August, but it tried. Those were the days when you had to plan to cross the Mojave desert at night because practically nobody's car had air.
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| A radiator bag common in the 1960s. You filled them with water, saturated the bag, then hung in front of your radiator to keep the engine cool. When the car overheated anyway, you used the water in the bag to replace the water. Then repeat the sequence. http://10engines.blogspot.com/2009/05/radiator-water-bag.html |
These bags hung in front of your radiator to keep it cool. They were flax or burlap-covered rubber bags filled with water that you soaked first.
They often had ads on them, which made them cheap. Yes, Jackson Browne fans, bags just like the cover of his first album, often mistakenly called "Saturate Before Using."
That was an instruction for use, not the title.
 |
| Jackson Browne's eponymous first album. |
Our family made many trips across country, and over the years some states must have made this practice illegal, because the attractions started wiring them on so they could be easily removed, should you care to.
You would see roadside signs starting about 100 miles away, and then you'd notice the bumper stickers. That's when you starting begging, even though it knew it wouldn't do you any good. Out family sometimes got to stop at Howard Johnson's for lunch, but never a Stuckey's, that home of the Pecan Log Roll.
So the trip with the grandparents was great. I got them to stop for lunch at Wall Drug, in Wall, S. D. still in business today. According to their website, the owner were devout Catholics who moved their business to Wall because from a smaller town because they wanted to go to Mass every day. They hit on the idea of luring people off the interstate with offers of free ice water.
It grew into a tacky tourist spot of epic proportions, with signs starting about 500 miles out, and the bumper sticker brigade not missing a car with their "Where the heck is Wall Drug?" stickers. The place has a stunning collection of jackalopes, as you can see on the site, as well as a giant one you can take your picture riding. During lunch, I hid my retainer under a napkin, so it wouldn't gross out fellow diners. Fifty miles down the road, I realized that I had left it behind, and we had to return for my expensive dental device.
I was not my grandparents' favorite grandchild that day.
 |
| A snake show in 1949 before the concrete snake pit got put in. |
Inside the reptile house, you could look down into a huge cement square hole in the ground. Inside was a platform where a man stood with scores of snakes crawling all over him and the enclosure.
The man had a shepherd's crook, and when the snakes crawled too high up the wall, he would use the hook, and flick them off. It was a little disconcerting to see venomous snakes hightailing it up the wall towards you. In a photo on their website from 1949 shows the same idea: a square of people with snakes in the middle.
By the 1960s, they had made it a little safer, probably at the request of their insurance company. I'm not sure what it looks like today. I hadn't thought about the place in years, and was rather shocked to see how it had grown. I'm sure there are parts of the trip I've forgotten, but rattlesnakes climbing a wall is indelibly etched into my memory.
I learned plenty of things from my father, but not stopping at tourist traps is not one of them. I lived in Simi Valley and used to ride my bike to spend time with Grandma Prisbrey at Bottle Village. I loved that place like no other, and was thrilled that it was right in the closest thing I have to a hometown.
And just like my grandparents, I have little resistance when it comes to my granddaughter Charlotte. If she wants to stop to see giant gunnite dinosaurs or the world's biggest ball of string, I'm going to stop the car.
