Why Is Our Blog Titled I Can’t Drive 55?

Notation:  This particular blog is named "Travel National Parks" but our previous blog (which this post was imported from) was named, "I Can't Drive 55" with Wordpress.  We left the post in tact due to the fact that it does add continuity to the blog.  (posted January 2011)

Well, first we’ll tell you a little bit of history about the song written by Sammy Hagar titled, “I Can’t Drive 55.”

Sammy Hagar had a little cabin in the area of Lake Placid, NY. That’s the same Lake Placid that the Winter Olympics took place in 1932 and then again in 1980. Apparently, Sammy wanted to get away from it all and visit the cabin to do some songwriting. Unfortunately, there is no direct flight into Lake Placid (or at least there wasn’t at that time), so he rents a car to drive from Albany, NY to Lake Placid. It’s quite a drive, so Sammy is cruising along at 62 miles per hour in a 55 mile per hour zone at 2:00 in the morning with one little cabin in the woods on his mind.

Next thing Sammy knows he’s getting pulled over by a police officer, and he tells the man, “I can’t drive 55.” The officer informed Sammy that in this particular area of the country they give tickets for driving over 60 mph in a 55 mph zone. Sammy claims that before the officer finished writing the ticket, the lyrics for his song were being written in his head.

So, what does that have to do with our blog?

Twenty five years ago when we got married we had a master plan. Our plan was to move to California. We wanted to see the country before settling down in California, so we had to have a plan. Our plan was to save our pennies, buy a motor home, then sight see our way across the country.

We bought a 1968 Winnebago Motor Home. Now you have to remember that this was back in 1985, and even then a vehicle built in 1968 was ancient. It had under 75,000 miles on it. The engine was in good shape, and we got a great deal on it. It was 19 1/2 feet long, and it is what we called home for 8 months (traveling for 3 of those 8 months). Everything that we started out in our married life with, fit into that little 19 1/2 foot long home! We know we could never do that now, but hey, we were kids, young, free, and newly married!


Here’s a pictures of our little home on wheels.

Motorhome

This particular vehicle was built back in a day when very few highways were traveled at high speeds.  In fact, we found that we often couldn’t drive it much over 55 mph or it would overheat.  You have to keep in mind that we also had all our belongings housed within its walls, which was a substantial weight, and we also had to haul up some pretty good sized hills and mountains during our travels.

So now you know why we called our blog “I Can’t Drive 55″ because we really couldn’t!  Well, we could have, but we’re sure we would have left the motor somewhere in Utah if we had.

So now you know why we called our blog “I Can’t Drive 55″ because we really couldn’t!  Well, we could have, but we’re sure we would have left the motor somewhere in Utah if we had.

Laurie on the Motorcycle

No, Laurie didn’t drive the motorcycle, nor did she drive the motor home.  She couldn’t reach the clutch pedal for shifting the motor home which had a 3-speed on the column.  And she didn’t even want to try to ride the motorcycle other than being a backside passenger.

Although she did like to pretend to want to drive both. Here she is sitting in the driver’s seat of the RV, relaxing.  That’s all she ever did in the driver’s seat of the RV – RELAX!  It was a comfy seat, you know!

Laurie Sitting in the Motorhome

Of course while Laurie was busy relaxing in the driver’s seat that she would never use as it was meant to be used, Bill was cleaning, fixing, stripping, screwing in cupboards, on the motor home.

Bill in the Motorhome

"No, Bill, you're wrong.  I was packing, making curtains for the motor home, and getting ready for a wedding.  There was no relaxing."


"Whatever you say, my dear Laurie." 

So, we call our blog “I Can’t Drive 55″ because we really couldn’t drive 55 mph with our new home on wheels.  We thought we really had to baby that old motor home, but the truth is that we drove it over 10,000 miles, and it never broke down.  It didn’t even sputter or cough once.  Well almost!

Our next post will tell how our journey began and where our travels took us to first.