My Favorite Ride: Family lore about a 1949 Ford Woodie station wagon in the desert

With school starting back up soon, like next week, I find myself wondering just where the summer has gone? Did you take a summer vacation with your family?

And if so, was your mode of transportation a station wagon?

I love station wagons, and inherited the family Pontiac wagon as my first car. I've been thinking about vacations and these vehicles that for decades transported entire families on adventures around the United States. Until the 1980s Invasion of the Minivan.

It was maybe 1970 when my family headed west in our silvery-blue 1968 Pontiac Catalina station wagon. We were taking my grandparents from Scottsville, Kentucky, to San Diego, where my uncle was in the Navy.

My grandma had never seen the ocean, so we drove her 2,054 miles to the Pacific one. Two grandparents, two parents and three kids. It takes 30 hours nowadays, but back then, I think the travel time was longer.

Much longer. Maybe because my designated "seat" was the 18-inch-wide gap between the middle bench and the back-facing rear seats. I was pretty skinny, able to lay down and read a few books scrunched in there.

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We made the usual scenic stops — the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, several Stuckey's. I spent my entire $20 souvenir money on a floppy brim suede hippie hat at a trading post. I loved that hat. My dad hated it.

But this is not the station wagon vacation I'm writing about this week. No, a picture of a station wagon and my Uncle Harry's recent death reminded my mother of a long-ago trip her family took out west.

This email arrived, followed by a post script from her younger brother.

"Laura Lea, I saw a picture of a wood panel station wagon in your column and it and reminded me of Daddy’s brand-new blueone with paneling, late 1940s? Ford? Three seats and large space behind.

"When Eric was about two, Daddy took us out west to visit relatives in Arizona. There were eight of us … our seven and sister Bettie Carol's friend, Joan Robinson. We went to the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert and beyond.

"There was a huge canvas bag that we attached to the car and had to fill up with water to cool the engine in the heat of the desert. No AC. It was brother Harry’s job to fill up the bag with water at service stations and put it on top of car engine when we stopped to see all the sights along the way. There were long distances between gas stations in those days, so there were challenges to traveling in the desert. Baby brother Eric slept on the floor between Mother and Daddy, there was lots of room, to keep him as cool as possible in just a diaper. Wish we all could have done that.

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"We would get our food at grocery stores and eat at picnic tables. Sometimes, homemade filled tortillas at little road side stands run by local Indians from the reservations … so good … and handmade trinkets to buy.

"Some nights we slept in the car under the desert moon, because there were not many inns available. We were gone from home in Scottsville about a month."

My uncle Eric told her he remembers that vacation "like it was yesterday. You and Marilyn (another sister) tormented me the entire trip.

"The car was a 1949 Ford Woodie," he wrote. "I was two in 1949. I can’t imagine Dad driving all that way with his lack of driving and navigation skills. It was difficult for him to drive across Indianapolis without getting lost. It’s a wonder we didn’t end up in New York or upside down at the bottom of a cliff somewhere.

"I remember being told that along with our luggage piled on the roof, my potty chair was there too. I actually turned 2 on the trip and was told Mother insisted on finding a cake for me, which created quite a challenge."

(Note to self: Do not complain again about the non-working air conditioning in your car. You come from hardy stock, people who traveled through the desert with no AC and a toddler sleeping on the floorboard. Your ancestors placed bladders full of cold water on the engine of a 1949 station wagon to keep it from overheating. Buck up. And always have a cake on hand.)

Have a story to tell about a car or truck? Contact My Favorite Ride reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: The summer we drove cross-country in a 1949 Ford Woodie wagon