A summer tour half a century later.

• Date: 01 September 2019
• Author: Atkins, Michael

The last time I drove across this country I was in somebody else's car, actually many cars. I hitchhiked.

It was a little more than 50 years ago and I still remember the soft spots where I spent the night at the side of the road. It never occurred to me people wouldn't pick me up.

It was the 1960s. What could go wrong? I had no tent, just a sleeping bag, plastic tarp and longish hair to remind motorists to think twice about picking me up. Fortunately, there were lots of people with long hair.

This summer was less rustic: daughters to accompany me both east and west to share the drive, a surprise fetish for A&W hamburgers without hormones or steroids, handily located in the most rural of settings across the country and hotel rooms every 10 to 12 hours to rest our weary bones; a piece of cake really.

In fact, in Hannah, Alta, (home to Nickelodeon, if you know who they are) we had hormone and...