In 1955, my grandmother took her young daughter on a road trip from their home in Southern California to Zion National Park in Utah. To save money, she drove them in her brother’s Chevrolet pick-up truck that had a camper built into the bed so they could sleep in their vehicle instead of hotels. That was cool.
Cool because I love learning that my grandmother liked road trips, which I did not know until I saw pictures of their journey in one of the photo albums I found after she died. But what I loved discovering even more is that she saved the entrance pass, which shows that on Sept. 11, 1955, my grandmother paid all of $1 for a “15-day Automobile Permit to Zion National Park.
” Which is a lot less than what my husband and I paid to enter the park some 60 years later when we drove from our home in Ukiah, Calif., to Zion National Park. (Heck, I don’t think $1 will buy you a pass to park anywhere for two hours these days, let alone for two weeks!) Since we planned to visit multiple parks on our trip – Yosemite, Death Valley, the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon as well as Zion – I suggested we buy an “America the Beautiful Pass” for $80.
And while my husband balked at paying that hefty amount, I assured him it was far cheaper than what we would end up paying if we bought separate passes for each park we were stopping at. But the best thing about that pass was when we finally reached Zion National Park, we could skip the long line of vehicles waiting to pay at the ki.
