The man in this picture I'd like to trade places with for a day is the one on the very right, my great-great uncle Kenneth Van Hee (my great-grandma's twin brother). In 1940, Plymouth had an idea to promote their car, a 1941 stock model Plymouth, and their company, by sending three men in the automobile on a 14,000 mile expedition south, making their way from Detroit, through the US, Central America, and South America until they reached the southernmost tip of South America, Cape Horn via the Pan-American Highway. My great-great uncle was one of those men, who succeeded in making it all the way to Cape Horn despite the road conditions and other obstacles. Along the way, the met interesting people including some Presidents, learned about many cultures, and probably had the time of their lives fording the car across rivers on rafts pulled by donkeys and struggling to get it unstuck from muddy roads. I was lucky to find a picture of him on the Internet; my family has some of him but I'm in Las Cruces right now. I wrote about the expedition about a year ago on here. While talking to my second-cousin last year and telling her of my dreams of travel, she told me, "You definitely have your uncle Ken's travel genes." I had always known about this adventure of his, but never really looked into it until I pulled out the book documenting the trip that my family owns. I would like to trade places with Kenneth Van Hee for a day (well, actually for more than that) to experience some of what he did and learn what he learned in these countries rich in culture and history. My great-great uncle and his two travel companions were often called "Three Damn Fools", but I say, who wouldn't want to be a damn fool when you have the chance of adventure such as this? This adventure has been considered "perhaps the last great automotive adventure undertaken on the face of this earth." I'd love to be part of that, if even for a day.
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