Page 34 - Been There… Done That!

Gary Graham
So, I took the money I had and rented a trailer and hitched it to my 1963 Olds Cutlass. Scott had a 1962 Corvair, so we loaded up and headed out on what turned out to be a hell of a trip on Route 66. A lot of construction projects were in progress on that highway at the time, but it was the only way to travel westward that made any sense.
Stopping in New Mexico for breakfast we went into a small café with a questionable appearance. We hadn’t seen anything for miles, so we went in. Everyone ordered coffee and then we ordered breakfast. When the waitress brought our plates out and sat mine in front of me, it smelled terrible. I called her over and told her the eggs smelled terrible. She responded that she couldn’t smell anything and then she asked me to describe what it smelled like. I was pissed and headed for the door and turned back and told her, “It smells like a skunk has been screwing your chickens.” Even the other customers started laughing. I felt we’d better get the hell out of there.
I had all kinds of problems with people trying to rip us off like charging too much for gas. Fifty cents a gallon was too much when we were paying eighteen cents at home. I got into it with one service station guy and was right in his face when I told him, “You aren’t robbing me, you son of a bitch,” but Ed later said he thought the guy was about to make a deal with me.
Another lingering memory from that first trip to California is the time the Corvair almost went over the side of a damn mountain. Somehow they had all fallen asleep and were slowing down to no
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