Hitting The Road to Nowhere: The Great American Teenage Road Trip

Have you heard about the three Pittsburgh teens that drove thirteen hours to redeem a several years old coupon for a McDonald's McCafe drink? The story's been a lot of places including on the KFVS12 TV station website.  They just took the kind of epic road trip that many of us dreamed about, but most of us have never experienced.

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It was about driving from Pittsburgh to Clear Lake, Iowa for a free McCafe beverage. But it was about way more than that, even though that gave the teens the idea.

According to the story, the teens also stopped at the I-80 Truck Stop near Davenport. Checked out the Surf Ballroom, where Buddy Holly, the Big Booper, and Richie Valenz played their last show before the music died. While also catching a Billy Joel concert in Indiana. It was also about friendship. Coming of age. Scratching that itch to hit the road, and of course, having fun.

That sounds like a pretty darn good road trip to me. I didn't experience my first real adult road trip until after my sophomore year in college when I borrowed my parent's car and headed to Kansas City to enjoy some Royals baseball.

In high school, we did more cruising than road tripping. Like the time my buddy Bill and I pointed "the rolling nightclub" towards Glenview to check out the Astin Martin dealership. Or the time a bunch of us decided to explore our inner rock star by heading to what was known as "The Rock Star" shop in Lombard. Someone dared me to buy some spandex, so yeah I spent 80 bucks on a pair of stage-ready, hair band-worthy, spandex. And I won't even get into the time I needed to have two guys pull the car out of a ditch one night while trying to find some young lady's house my friend Neil was into.

No, road trips came later. And I can't say they were anywhere as exciting as the one these young men recently experienced. Nor can I say they were as exciting as some of the cruising we did in high school. The problem was, very rarely was a goal involved. And if we did have a goal we didn't have a car.

For example, my roommate and I freshman year at college really wanted to go to the Eric Clapton / Stevie Ray Vaughn show at Alpine Valley. The one where Stevie Ray Vaughn lost his life in that helicopter crash. We probably would have gone, but neither of us had a car. So instead we stayed in the dorm, put on some CDs, turned on the backlight and I think drank some rum and cokes.

When I did know someone with a car who wanted to road trip, without a goal, the motivation was, or at least my motivation was to go somewhere to hear radio you couldn't hear in Chicago. That led me to Grand Rapids, Milwaukee, and other places in Michigan. We'd usually get into town, check out downtown, then just head back to Chicago. Sure, there were some good conversations. It scratched that itch to do something, anything but sit in someone's apartment. But there really aren't any zany memories attached to it.

The closest I ever came to an honest-to-goodness coming-of-age road trip was riding Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited to New York City, then hopping another train to New Haven, Connecticut so I could drive a car my Great Aunt Margaret left to my Grandma.

My friend Lori, who worked at the college radio station with me was going to go, and it was supposed to be epic. Unfortunately, in a stroke of bad luck, she had to bow out the day I was planning to go. And so I continued on solo.

The train trip to New York was arduous and due to a freight derailment, I wound up on a bus from Cleveland to Buffalo and all the delays that entailed. I managed to make it to New Haven, and get the car without an issue. Made a wrong turn on the Garden State Parkway on the way to Philly and wound up in Wildwood, New Jersey. From there I called my Mom, who suggested I go to the beach before getting back on the road.

Somehow the Atlantic City Expressway took me right into the bridge over the Delaware River that dumped me off in our old neighborhood. I somehow managed to find the apartment complex we lived in, the school I went to kindergarten at, the duplex we lived in on the street where I made my first couple of friends, and the barbershop I got my first haircut at. I stopped for a couple of Wendy's Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers and browsed a record store in the same strip mall for some cassettes.

Yet the whole experience left me kind of empty without anyone to share it with. The next day's travel through the mountains of Pennsylvania left me tired and on edge because it was foggy and rainy and a tough drive. When I called it a night somewhere near Youngstown, Ohio my parents gave me static about taking an extra day to do the trip. Apparently, they weren't thrilled with having to pay for a night at the creepy Econolodge there.

I wish there was some great story attached or some great life lesson learned or adventure shared. Mostly I can say I managed to get myself unlost and somehow instinctually remembered enough to get into my childhood neighborhood without Google maps.

I might have a great road trip in me, I hope I do. Yet, the great coming-of-age road trip like these kids experienced. It's come and gone. At least I can say I got the car delivered to my grandmother safely. And I even vacuumed out the interior and ran it through the car wash for her.