Okay, don't come looking for my parents over this one. But I remember summer family vacations as far different from today's road trips with children. There was not a car seat in sight. Heck, we didn't even wear seatbelts (or sit upright for that matter!). I spent our family road trips traveling in the jump seat:
The jump seat was the rear-facing bench in the back of the old family station wagon. On particularly long road trips, I don't think we even used it sitting up. Instead, it was folded down and my brother and I were free to roam in the resulting cargo area in the back of the car. It was the life!
We had an old shirt that was sewn shut at the bottom to make a travel bag. It would be filled with our favorite games and toys, draped on a hanger, and hung on the garment hook in the back of the station wagon. We'd kill hours on road trips throwing birthday parties for our stuffed animals in the back of that car. We'd hold meet-and-greets to acquaint old toys with new souvenirs picked up along the way. We'd nap and eat and pretty much treat the space like a living room on wheels traveling 60 down the interstate.
Today, we're fortunate to have much better safety measures in place. But to this day - a quarter of a century later - I can't think of a road trip without fondly remembering that fold-down jump seat.
Do you have any family vacation memories from the 70's and 80's? Any less-than-safe-by-today's-standards practices? Let's reminisce in the comments section below!
(Image: Birds on a Road Trip print by barkingbirdart)
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oh yeah! the slippy-slide! that's what we called the back of the station wagon when all of the seats were folded down. and the way-way back when the seats were up.
ahhh, good times.
Heck, even in the late nineties, my family took a road trip around scotland where we had too many kids for seatbelts (i was a kid) - the extra one got to lie across all the luggage in the back. It was the best seat! We all fought to be there.
Absolutely! We had a mini station wagon & my dad built some shelving contraption for the wagon part of it, so it would be flush with the tops of the back seat. He also made a cushion for that area & that is where the dog & I spent our road trips (which were never less than 10 hours). I am sure, looking back on it now - I would have been a projectile should we have ever been in an accident.
We draped ourselves over every surface in a variety of vans & cars. The best though, was a friend of my mom's, who had a Suburban with a platform built in the back - there was plenty of room for luggage under it, and a double mattress on top! It was like a mobile slumber party...
We LOVED the backwards seat, with our feet hanging down the back roll-down window! My husband remembers taking a trip from Utah to Arkansas with all the brothers and sisters in the back of pickup truck with a topper. All just hanging out back there.
Yeah! I have fantastic memories of the 'way back' of our VW van. We used to clamber over the seat rows, and the way way back was the best spot. We also lifted the rubber floormats where there was a round hole in the metal and we could see the road zooming by, sometimes pouring water or dropping things through it.
Yeah. Good times, but of course one accident and...yeah. Luck! I find it hard to relate literally to our children's strapped, immobile car experience gazing out the window in this generation. The naps are probably comfier but it's not exactly playtime nowadays, for sure.
As a kid, my father had a Ford truck with a canopy. Due to the three seater bench seat, when we went camping, we would pack the back 3/4 of the bed with our supplies and etcetera and I would be allowed to climb through the sliding rear window to sit in the bed on blankets. It was the best - a secret, mobile fort.
I remember having one of these. The rear window actually went down so you could hang your feet out the back window. I was a teenager at the time and have a clear memory of packing 16 people into one of those station wagons to go to the beach on a sunny school afternoon.
The most dangerous way my family travelled, however, was an old cargo van. (the ones with no windows) My parents set up a radio, threw down a run in the back and pushed in an old sofa. That's right, we sat on a sofa in the back of a van to drive 2 hours to my grandmother's house multiple times. There were pillows and such too so you could sleep on the floor if you wanted to.
Oh! The memories! We had an old GMC Van... my parents would throw a mattress in the back, and make a bed for us! We'd go from front to back, while driving.... we'd sleep, read, play barbies! Ah the good ol days! So wish we could do it now! Perhaps my son would like driving in the car then!
loved when we would travel with a camper, we got to hang out on the bed when we were off the main roads (as it was not legal anymore when I was a kid)
For us it was our Astrovan, my dad taking the seats out the back (which was an all night ordeal back then) and we got to just bring blankets and pillows and lay in the back of the minivan for roadtrips. We slept more and weren't so cooped up so it was a win-win both ways!
We TOTALLY had a jump seat in our 1984 Mercedes wagon (which my parents still own). I remember how funny it was to stare at the drivers behind us and wave. So fun!
I got to do this when I was a kid, but rarely.
Once, I did ride with someone from Mississippi to Nevada and he let his daughter and me ride in the back of his (uncovered) pick-up while driving 80 down the freeway. We were inside sleeping bags. It was fun, but I was terrified he'd manage to kill us somehow. Looking back, I'm surprised he didn't somehow.
Looking back, that was probably enough of a near miss. Now, I always wear my seatbelt.
I remember having my parents having a station wagon with the two fold-able back seats. They also had a van at one point in time with only the two front bucket seats. In the back of the van a little past the rear doors was a mounted wood box that was carpeted on top and had storage under it. That was all we sat on as children.
We once made a sign that said "feet for sale" and held it up as our feet hung out the back of the wagon. Thought it was hilarious. It then spawned "arms for sale," "butts for sale," etc. My mom drew the line at "head for sale." LOL. Took me a long time to figure out why that one made her mad.
The best story I have heard is a friend whose mom had a VW bus. My friend was sitting in the seat in the far back and in the open area between that seat and the front seat, her brother was hanging out in a playpen (yes, while they were driving). They went around a corner, the sliding door flew open, and the playpen slid out onto the street! It didn't tip over, and her brother was fine, but can you imagine??
We didn't have a waaaay back, but since my mom couldn't read a map to save her life, I usually rode copilot in the front seat from the age of 5. Those were before the days of car seats, booster seats, and front air bags.
When we harp about packing our TWO kids into the car for the 7 hour car ride to great-grandma's house, she always reminds me that she took her FOUR kids half way across the country twice. (Of course, that was when kids could actually MOVE in the car and not be locked tightly into a single position.) I then remind her that, according to modern seatbelt laws, she's not tall enough to be in the car without a booster seat :)
Ahhhh, the wagon! Aside from roadtrips, did anyone else experience the fun of the drive-in in the back of a station wagon? I fondly remember seeing Grease in the back of the wagon. My brother and I played and watched and fell asleep in sleeping bags while my parents enjoyed the show. So much fun.
ooooh yeah! My parents have 6 kids and we'd all cram in our plymouth volare for the 12 hour trek to Grandma's. My little sister and I got the "way back" and rode with all the luggage. Our car was too cheap for a jump seat, we just squeezed in the way back with all the stuff - and my dad refused to tie anything on the roof rack because he said it made the gas mileage worse. Oh dear, AND that car had vinyl seats and no AC of course!
I remember riding in the rear-facing jump seat in my friend's parent's old Volvo wagon and waving to other cars. Good memories.
My mom had a station wagon with a jump seat when we were growing up too. It was AMAZING! We loved it, but had to sit up and wear seatbelts in it! When my mom would wash her car she would take us with and we would crawl around the car and play back there. Sometimes we would even fold the jump seat and back seats down and plop an air bed in there and camp out. It was the best!
As for how my sister felt about inheriting the vehicle as her first car at the age of 16, well, that might be a little different.
Oh man, I remember driving to Rocky Point in the back of a truck with a camper. SOOO much fun!
We had an Dodge Caravan in the 80s. For the 8 hour trip to grandma's, we'd take out the middle seat and my brother would sprawl out on the remaining bench, which I made a nest on the floor, along with the ice chest and all the crap that we had (a backpack of books for me, snacks, games, etc). It was so annoying when we'd hit a city and my brother and I would have to sit up and buckle up.
Oldsmobile, late 1970s. Dad would cut a piece of plywood to cover the area between the front and back seats. Mom covered the board with thewith quilt batting and a blanket, and filled the space with pillows and toys for me and my brother. We could play and stretch out for naps during our epic road trips.
Dad also let me and my brother stand on the seat of his pickup truck. When he'd stop, he'd fling out his right arm to catch us.
We would head out on vacation either in the back of my grandma's conversion van with the back seat flat - definitely no seat belts. Or in a little Astro mini van with the back seat taken out, and the youngest traveler in a car seat... on the floor of the van... I have no idea if that was legal or not at the time...
And one vacation my parents threw a mattress in the back of our truck with a cap. Most comfortable ride ever! My grandma, on the other hand, was terrified for us.
I, too, have had many similar family road trips in these fashions. And as far as I've read from all these posts, we've all turned out just fine. My parents suffered a trip from California to Louisiana and back with the four of us covered in chickenpox in the camper shell covered back of the family pick up... If that didn't kill us, I don't think a semi hitting us head on would have... ;)
My childhood roadtrips: driving overnight in the back of the station wagon with seats folded down, my brothers in Star-Wars sleeping bags, me in a Strawberry Shortcake bag. I would climb up and sit between my parents as my dad drove through the night. I still remember the glow of the radio buttons--one of my most vivid and safest childhood memories.
Once my grandparents took my brothers and I back to their place (a multi-state trip) in a cargo van loaded with rolls of carpet (grandpa was a carpet layer). We lay on the enormous carpet rolls as if they were beds.
And of course, we rented motorhomes a few times and took turns riding in the bed above the driver's seat.
I also remember my mom strapping my younger sister into her infant car seat--then placing it unstrapped between the driver and passenger seats in the family van.
Thirty-odd years ago, at age four, I threw a temper tantrum in the jumpseat, on the way to Disney World, in the middle of nowhere in GA - and cracked my head open on a metal hinge. (I believe the topic of the tantrum was my sister maliciously stuffing toilet paper in my Pink Panther doll's mouth.) Suddenly there were four shrieking girls and blood spurting everywhere. My mom crawled over all the seats to get back there while my dad hit the gas, speeding so fast we ended up with a police escort - and it was so stressful that when we got to the hospital they had to put my DAD on a stretcher too! So yeah... it's a funny story now but I don't think I'd want my kid in the jumpseat nowadays, heh.
Our old family Buick station wagon had the rear-facing back seat. My best friend & I always wanted to wrap sheets around our legs and stick our feet out of the window with toe-tags hanging off, like corpses. For some reason my parents wouldn't let us.