1974 Epic Road Trip

When I was twenty years old my good friend and I went on a road trip. We drove around the Great Lakes clockwise. We headed north toward Duluth on Highway 61. There was no highway named 35 to Duluth at this point. At the small town of Esko the muffler departed from my 1968 Rambler American so we had a very loud trip. We drove north into Canada and then east. We took a ferry from some place in Ontario to Niagara Falls. My father gave me the map and it was very old so we didn't know that the ferry had moved to a different city more than ten years ago. We missed our ferry and had to wait all day until the next ferry. We sailed across Lake Ontario in the dark. When I drove my car off the ferry the steering was off. Maybe the rocking of the boat affected the steering but it was very loose. I had to crank that steering wheel twice as far as I usually did to turn the car. Gradually that went away and my steering was back to normal. This was before power steering was available. On our way back we stopped in Chicago. My father's cousin had a bakery there. We stopped at the bakery. My father's cousin was not working but the woman at the desk gave us a bag of broken cookies to take home. We also stopped at a Pier One store. My friend admired this picture by Picasso while I admired a stainless steel bentwood rocking chair. Later I bought a copy of the drawing, had it framed and gave it to her as a gift. I still like that drawing because it reminds me of her and our friendship. While we drove she was crocheting a brown lap blanket. She kept talking about the great gift I was going to get on my birthday. I was so surprised on my birthday to open my present and here was a brown crocheted lap blanket. After Chicago we spent the night at the Wisconsin Dells. I have not been back to the Dells since that trip. I hear it is much different. I am so glad I went on that trip with my friend. We sure had a good time.