>When the Pattersons of Pacific Palisades, California, embarked on a 7,500-mile round-trip journey across the United States in the summer of 1951, the local newspaper announced the family’s departure: “Pattersons Leave on First Trip in Unique Private Bus.”

Martha Patterson’s husband, Pat, might have challenged that headline, arguing that what they were driving was not actually a bus. It was an early motor home’a 33-ft.-long, 8-ft-wide vehicle called a Flxible that they had converted into a house car for family travel.

“It Isn’t A Bus” details the two-month trip that Martha and Pat took with their three young children, Charles, 12, Dave, 9, and Sally, 5. Told in Martha’s warm and honest tone, with a good dose of humor, the story takes readers on a bumpy but joyous ride across the country and introduces them to a host of quirky characters from a female hitchhiker to vacationing school teachers driving a hearse.

Martha, who holds the distinction of having lived in the Palisades the longest of any current resident, tells the story of her family’s adventure as pioneering motor homers in a new book, “It Isn’t A Bus,” written with her daughter, Sally Patterson Tubach. The authors will sign their self-published book at a party at Martha’s home on July 3. For more information, call (213) 447-5188 or e-mail lauraepatterson@yahoo.com. Full Story…

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