Welcome to Nobody Told Me. I'm Jan Black. And I'm Laura Owens. On this episode, we're taking a look at the Great American Family Road Trip with our guest, Richard Rite.

Richard is the author of the book, Don't Make Me Pull Over, an informal history of the family

road trip. Richard, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me on. Always fun to talk about those good old-fashioned family road trips.

We all recall so fondly, right? And you know what?

My mom and I take road trips all the time, the most recent being two weeks ago. So we are very,

very into the whole family road trip thing. And we want to know more about what your experience was

and what spurred you on to write the book. Well, I mean, I know this may shock you, but the idea

for writing a book about family vacations actually occurred to me while on a family vacation.

Shocking.

Yes, I know. My dirty little secret was it wasn't actually a road trip that time.

But I had been searching for something to write about.

And it occurred to me that the very experience I was on, a family vacation,

was probably among the most memorable and profound experiences that had shaped my life. And I

suspected it would be that case for many people. Those family road trips that I had taken while

growing up, you know, had kind of provided many of my most favorite memories.

They'd broaden my outlook in so many ways. And really, those experiences of traveling together had really shaped my relationships with my parents and my siblings, really, for a lifetime.

But I also realized how little I knew about that great American road trip experience and how it came to be.

And so, you know, I wondered about how we got things like our highways, things like fuzz busters,

eight-track tape decks, and CB radios from the time I was traveling the highways with my parents.

And why as a kid I was allowed to roam freely around our car and even climb up and

take naps on the rear window ledge? And of course, I also had that question, I think, so many of

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