Chapter 8

College Road Trip

7/15/2010

Great Cedar Swamp

Daughter's Florida journey sparked my synapses.  The summer prior to entering our senior year in college (1966) my roommate and (and his younger brother here) decided to hit Time Magazines top 10 east coast best beaches. I took this shot in the early morning sun after our first stay over having hit near Palisades Park NJ,  Cape May or Wildwood.Kind of blurs together now. I do recall seeing the Great Cedar Swamp on the map and figured we could sneak in there for a free stay. Believe some construction trucks were clanking about the next morning as we brushed our teeth with a cup of water. My old '58 Chev did the trip fine. Had been previously totaled by a drunk while parked on the street while playing summer night basketball in Cortland. Got $150 bucks and kept the car to fix prior to my first do it yourself body work and red paint job. On the illegal parking ticket at Asbury Park the cop wrote up car color: "multicolored". Kept that as souvenir for a while as I never paid it. aside- Christie has accrued way more tix than I ever thought of.

We were on low budget plan, did some of our own cooking and cut corners wherever possible. The "all you can eat" $1.99 fish fry at Howard Johnson was a big hit (Tue and Thur). Drove right onto Daytona Beach and tented until the cops came to move us about 2am. We gave em the ole poor college student ramble and they felt sorry for us and let us stay.

My old Ansco camera took a lot of crappy pics, but this one came out good. It tells a time capsule story making it chapter-worthy in my mind.  Really can't remember much more, but we did also hit Ocean City, MD, Myrtle Beach,SC, St. Augustine,FL. Recall a lot of US 1 and 1A- not all of I-95 was built yet.