We had no children yet in 1973, so Guy still enjoyed driving his second hand 1966 Corvette to work at Stapleton Tower in Denver. Our other car was a 1969 VW bug, which someone was borrowing while we brought the Vette back to Iowa for a vacation.
We were to arrive late on Guy’s mother’s birthday, but Nebraska is a very wide state. The clutch went out near Grand Island so we were towed to there, but they needed to order parts which wouldn’t be there until the next day.
A motel was within walking distance, a place to eat, and also a movie theater. We watched “Paper Moon.”
Late the next afternoon we learned that the new parts were defective. The mechanics loaned us a ’63 Chevy with a fur dashboard. There were also fuzzy dice hanging from the rear-view mirror, and we got several gawkers. Probably friends of the guy who owned the car and hadn’t paid for repairs on it.
Since Guy was an air traffic controller, we drove to the Grand Island airport, toured the national weather service and flight service station. We were thankful that the theater changed to a new movie, so we killed time by watching “Badge 373.”
Finally the third day we were able to leave Grand Island early in the afternoon. Guy decided to make up a little time getting to his mother’s, but got pulled over in Iowa by a cop standing next to the highway and flagging over speeder after speeder. We had to sit in line for another trooper to come give us the ticket.
When we finally got to the Glidden farm, two days late for Guy’s mother’s birthday, we figured it would have been quicker and cost us less to just fly home.
But now we have a story to tell.