A 16,000 mile road trip around North America in 1972

By Laurence Gruer (Class of 1971)

I was the fortunate recipient of the Hamilton scholarship for 1971/72. Open to all 6th form students, this provided free tuition fees, accommodation and meals for the academic year at Hamilton College, a prestigious liberal arts college in upstate New York. In addition, the English-speaking Union supplied a monthly travel allowance of $100 – worth about $730 today. Surprisingly, there were only three applicants. Perhaps it was too daunting for the rest: far away and delaying university and career. For me, it seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime and, 50 years on, I can confirm that it was. 

During the two semesters, I studied Cultural Anthropology, French Civilisation, Russian History, Embryology, Vertebrate Anatomy and the Philosophy of Death. I played in the College soccer (football) team and appeared in a production of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. I spent Christmas in Texas and went on a biology trip around Florida in January, collecting shells and observing birds. I learned to skate and cross-country ski. 

In the depths of the long, cold winter, my thoughts turned to summer and the prospect of travelling across the country to California. I had befriended Bo Jordin, a Swedish student also at Hamilton for a year. After considering our options, we decided we could share the cost of a cheap second-hand car which we could sell when we returned. Petrol in those days was 12p a gallon (The exchange rate in 1972 was about $2.50/£1) so 1,000 miles at 30mpg would cost £4! We would borrow camping equipment from the college mountaineering club and further cut costs by staying with Watsonians and various friends en route. In a letter to my parents, I set out my rough budget (£) for a 10,000mi trip over 10 weeks:

Car depreciation	60
Petrol	20
Insurance and licence	48
Living expenses	100
Total	228

 

Our parents helped us pay for the initial cost of the car: £360 for a 3-year-old Nissan. We got a bank loan to cover the cost of a full year’s insurance, most of which would be refunded. We had some spare cash to cover breakdowns. We set off on May 29, aiming to get back to Hamilton on August 7. 

We drove through the endless forests of New England to Maine and along its fog-shrouded coasts. At the border with Québec, US immigration told us our student visas were no longer valid and we couldn’t return into the US without getting a tourist visa. The nearest US embassy was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 300 miles away! This unplanned diversion took us through forests and small fishing villages on mirror-calm coves, whose serene beauty the West of Scotland might struggle to equal. 

 

The Frenchness of Québec surpassed my expectations: the little wrought-iron balconies, the black berets, the smell of vanilla and garlic, the children shouting incomprehensible argot in the streets. Québec City could have been shipped straight from the Seine. Montréal’s new Metro impressed with its clean stations, and quiet rubber-wheeled trains compared with New York City’s filthy, old-fashioned Subway. Ottawa, the nation’s capital had an air of grace, centred on its distinguished Parliament buildings. We passed the Sudbury Basin, essentially a gigantic open-cast mine and then source of 80% of the world’s nickel. 

 

Approaching the US border at Sault Sainte Marie with trepidation, we shaved, combed our hair, and put on clean shirts and smart trousers. We were allowed in without hindrance. Crossing Wisconsin into Minnesota, we chanced upon a Swedish evening in a Lutheran church. An evangelist pastor, speaking mainly in Swedish, preached, sang and asked for money. We ended up eating donuts and cookies in the home of an elderly man whose ancestors had been among the first Swedes to make their way up the Mississippi river and settle in those parts.  Moving north into Manitoba, we stayed with Dr Jim Lunn, a peripatetic radiologist and one of three Watsonians living in Winnipeg. The most recent arrival was Charles Inglis, whom I had seen performing in a school play only four years previously. Jim kindly arranged for me to phone my parents – only the second time I had done so since arriving in the US, due to the expense. At the reconstructed trading fort in Lower Fort Garry, we found piles of every fur imaginable – mink, muskrat, beaver, timber wolf, skunk, lynx, bobcat, buffalo, arctic fox, squirrel and wolverine. I would be surprised if such an ostentatious display of animal slaughter is still there. Thereafter, 800 miles of flat earth under the huge dome of the sky. 

 

In Edmonton, we stayed at the home of Colonel Cormack, a Watsonian who was away teaching Native American boys, leaving us with his wife and their severely disabled son. At last, we had reached the Rockies. Within three hours we had seen a flock of mountain goats, deer, moose, a host of squirrels, gophers and chipmunks and a lumbering black bear. After the endless plains, the mountains were magnificent. We drove along the spine of the Rockies from Jasper to Banff, marvelling at the jagged, snow-covered peaks for almost 200 miles. 

 

Having completed about 400 of the 600 miles from Banff to Vancouver, Bo was driving us through yet more mountains. He announced there was a Rolls Royce just behind us. As it was the first Rolls we had seen in North America, I asked him to allow it to overtake us so we could admire this triumph of British engineering. We then started a long descent with the Rolls immediately in front of us. It braked, but when Bo tried to do likewise, our brakes appeared to fail. A few seconds later we crashed into the back of the Rolls. The impact slowed us down and a gap opened up between the two cars. Bo seemed to be frantically pumping the brakes but when I looked down, I saw his foot was actually on the clutch! I shouted this to him but in his panic it didn’t register. The Rolls braked and we crashed into it for a second time. As the downhill stretch continued into the distance and the Rolls was unable to accelerate due to cars in front of it and others coming up the hill, it seemed as if we would continue colliding until both cars were pulverised. Just as we were about to collide for a third time, Bo thought of the handbrake. We came to a halt. 

In a state of shock, we got out. The front of our car was badly crushed and green fluid was gushing onto the road – our radiator had burst. The Rolls had stopped about 100 yards away. As we sheepishly walked towards it, a middle-aged woman in a fur stole emerged. She immediately commiserated us for our brake failure: “These things happen!” We looked at the Rolls: a brake light was cracked and the bumper slightly pushed in on one side. She said it could easily be fixed and they had four other cars – her husband owned a group of radio stations – “No need to worry about the Rolls. You should get help in Penticton”. With that, she got back into her car and drove off!

We remembered we had passed through Penticton about 30 minutes before. Leaving Bo in his misery, I managed to hitch a lift there. I found the police station and reported the accident. They organised a pick-up truck to bring the car back to Parker Motors, the main garage in town. A Mountie drove me back to the scene in his sleek Plymouth sedan. Deciding that honesty was the best policy, we told him exactly what had happened. Bo was given an on-the-spot fine for driving without due care and attention. Several hours later, the car was in the garage yard surrounded by wrecks. We found a space there to pitch our tent. A new radiator and some other parts had to be ordered from Vancouver, 260 miles away. 

 

Four days later we were on our way. As I no longer had confidence in Bo’s driving, we agreed I would drive the rest of the way – which turned out to be another 8,000 miles!

We had gone about 50 miles when suddenly the engine spluttered and died. We got out and looked under the bonnet. A small flame was burning on a rubber tube running over the battery. We had no fire-extinguisher. As the flame was only an inch or two high, I smothered it with my hankie, and it went out! We found the tube had burnt right through. As the engine had cut out, we thought it was probably the fuel supply line: I sucked gently on one of the burnt ends and got petrol in my mouth! The fire had started next to a metal clasp on the tube which was resting on the positive terminal of the battery. It appeared the mechanics had hooked the tube over the battery to keep it out of the way when they were replacing the radiator. They had forgotten to move it back, thereby creating a short circuit between the clasp and the battery. We had been lucky the car had not exploded in a ball of flame. 

How could we join the tube together again? Perhaps if we could get some copper tubing of the right diameter, we could insert it into both ends of the tube and hold it in place with the metal clasp. With my Swiss Army knife, I cut off a piece of the tube. Leaving Bo again, I hitch-hiked to the town of Princeton, about 20 miles away where I found a hardware shop with copper tubing of the exact size to fit in the tube. Returning to the car, I inserted the small length of copper, tightened the clasp, closed the bonnet and turned the ignition. To our delight, the engine started and we continued on our way. With a combination of good luck, calm heads and ingenuity, we had narrowly avoided disaster. 

Fortunately, we had already arranged to stay in Seattle with a Hamilton friend. We were able to stay in luxury at his wealthy parents’ house for the week or so needed to get the car fully repaired. With a new radiator grille, headlights and bumper, it actually looked better than before the accident. In nearby Tacoma, we visited the Songs, a delightful Korean family whose son we had met in Hamilton. It was my first experience of Korean food and hospitality. We drove as far as we could up Mount Rainier (14,110ft; 4341m), a dramatic dormant volcano which dominates the landscape south-east of Seattle. 

 

From there we reached the Pacific in north Oregon, following the dramatic coastline for 300 miles to the Redwood National Park. We were amazed by the enormous size of these great trees. After another 300 miles, we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and arrived in San Francisco. The city of love and flower power did not disappoint, with its streetcars, steep streets, colourful Chinatown and earthquake-resistant skyscrapers. From Fisherman’s Wharf, we could see Alcatraz Island, site of the infamous prison which had closed only nine years before. Across the Bay was Berkeley campus, scene of numerous protests in the 1960s in favour of freedom of speech and against the war in Vietnam. 

 

We headed east to Yosemite National Park. Like millions before and since, we were thrilled by its towering cliffs and plunging waterfalls. Just east of Yosemite we decided to climb Mount Dana (13,061ft; 4018m), its summit reached by a “simple hike” up the last 3,000ft from the road. Out of condition from weeks of driving and never having climbed at such a high altitude, we struggled to reach the top but the view was spectacular. 

 

From there we descended into the Nevada Desert. We drove close to the Nellis Nuclear Testing Site, where American nuclear bombs were tested from 1951 to 1992, before arriving in Las Vegas. Far less developed than it is now, it was both unattractive and unaffordable. Our main problem was the heat. In mid-afternoon, a street thermometer read 117F (47C). We found a slot machine parlour with air-conditioning and free cold drinks. As we refreshed ourselves, we watched the glassy-eyed customers squander their money. When we returned to our car, I had to wear gloves to hold the burning hot steering wheel. We left Las Vegas without delay, heading into Arizona. The Grand Canyon was undoubtedly the most spectacular natural wonder we had ever seen. 

 

 

We continued south to the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument on the border with Mexico where one of our Hamilton friends was studying the desert flora and fauna. We spent an afternoon driving to and from the sleepy fishing village of Puerto Penasco on the Gulf of California so we could at least claim we had visited Mexico. Heading back north, we travelled through vast arid landscapes, recalling the numerous TV Westerns of my childhood. The impoverished Apache and Navajo Nation reservations in contrast with the superb cliff dwellings of the Pueblo peoples in the Mesa Verde National Park illustrated the cost to Native Americans of the deceit and violence of the White settlers as they pushed ever further west. We wended our way north, seeing yet more geological wonders in the Arches National Monument and Canyonlands National Park, and mind-boggling fossils in the Dinosaur National Monument. 

 

We went hiking in the spectacular Grand Teton National Park where we had a frightening encounter with a bristling porcupine on a pitch-dark night. Nearby Yellowstone National Park, fictional home of Yogi Bear and Boo Boo, did not disappoint, with real bears and moose, Old Faithful geyser and the celebrated Artists’ Point panorama. 

 

 

From there we began our long drive back east, camping first in South Dakota. As we prepared for bed, we could see lightning flashes in the distance. Suddenly, a ferocious wind began tearing at our tent. Before we knew what was happening, it collapsed and we were being rolled across the field, trapped in flapping canvas. We struggled out into the gale, now joined by lashing rain. Scarcely able to stand, we dragged the tent and soaking belongings into the car and drove off in search of refuge. It was a salutary lesson on the unpredictable extremes of weather in the US, no doubt more frequent and destructive fifty years on. A week and 2,500 miles of Interstate Highways later we arrived back in Hamilton College. After 16,000 miles and ten weeks on the road, we were exhausted, relieved to have made it back in one piece and ready to go home. 

 

 

Looking back, I am amazed at what I achieved, having only just turned 19. Apart from our accident, everything went remarkably smoothly, and we were treated with kindness and respect wherever we went. Memories of the trip remain as fresh as if it had happened last year. With the benefit of hindsight, I am acutely aware of the advantages of being a relatively wealthy White male. In racist and sexist America, it would have been insane for two Black youths to undertake such a trip and, for two young women, unwise at the very least. Whilst the US has made progress towards greater equality since then, recent history shows that much remains to be done and nothing can be taken for granted. 

Biographical note

On his return from Hamilton, Laurence studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He married a Ghanaian doctor, and they had three children. After two years as a clinical microbiologist in Lyon, he specialised in public health from 1985, initially working in Glasgow. Focusing on HIV/AIDS and drug misuse, he was awarded an OBE for services to public health in 2001. He was Director of Public Health Science at NHS Health Scotland 2002–2, majoring on tobacco, alcohol misuse, obesity and health inequalities. Now retired, he remains Honorary Professor of Public Health at the University of Edinburgh. In 2014, he set up a health charity supporting an impoverished district in northern Ghana. In 2020, he was the founding Secretary of the Global Society on Migration, Ethnicity, Race and Health.