The Road Trip

"Adventure is not outside man; it is within."

George Eliot

In the summer of ’76, my close friend Scott McNatt and I decided to take a little drive from Los Angeles to the Olympic Games in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, over three thousand miles away. Actually, it turned out to be a lot farther than that, as we took numerous detours along the way, such as Lake Tahoe, the Bonneville Salt Flats, Yellowstone, and Mt. Rushmore.

But first, we needed a vehicle we could drive and sleep in, because we didn’t have the money to stay in a motel every night, and we didn’t want to spend a month sleeping on the ground. We had our dads’ credit cards as backup, but we wanted to take it easy on them.

Our search revealed a 1955 Chevy Step Van that had previously been a UPS truck. As it was in rough shape, we spent several weeks fixing it up and hand-painting it red, white, and blue in honor of our country’s 200th birthday. We emblazoned thirteen stars across its massive blue front and a map of the United States on one side to show our route as we progressed. We built out the interior to allow for two fold-out bunks and a refrigerator powered by an occasionally replaced block of ice.

So off we went into the wild blue yonder, or at least up the 101.

Our itinerary was simply to head north, then east, and come back in a month, as we were going to Montreal to compete in the Olympic Games. Sorry, autocorrect. We were going to compete with five hundred thousand other spectators for tickets to the Olympic Games. Common knowledge was that none were available, but what’s several thousand miles to find out?

There is something wonderful about being out on the road on a long trip with nowhere you have to be tonight, tomorrow, or the next day. The experience of already being where you are going is exhilarating, and it takes all the pressure out of the usual drive from, say, Los Angeles to Lake Tahoe.

We broke down five times, and that provided the opportunity to appreciate the amazing kindness of total strangers we met along the way. The dad in me must say that not all strangers are kind, but the ones who picked me up hitchhiking for a tow truck and drove me twenty-two miles out of their way in the middle of nowhere were, and so were many others.

After a while on the road, we didn’t like coming into a big town, as there was so much to see in the little towns and where there were no towns at all. A trip with no itinerary really makes you appreciate right where you are.

When we arrived in Montreal, we needed a new tire, and the French-Canadian mechanic who helped us suggested that we go to the office of the Montreal Matin, the morning newspaper, and ask if we could tag along with a photographer to the Games. Now, this was a ridiculous idea even in 1976, but since we had none better, we decided to go for it.

To our surprise, the paper welcomed us, took our picture, and wrote a story about our sojourn across the continent to see the Games. We think they splashed it up a bit, though we weren’t quite sure, as it was written in French. But from that moment on, their readers donated tickets for us to see the Games every day we were there, another amazing kindness from total strangers.

The paper wrote a follow-up article about the success of their campaign and published our picture again, breakfasting with Jacques and Claudine St. Germain, the reporter who had written our story and his wife.

Jacques gave us each a Canadian dollar and signed it in French. He told us with a twinkle in his eye, “If you keep this dollar in your wallet, you will always have money.”

I have lost and found that wallet with my Canadian dollar twice in the more than forty years since that breakfast. The first time I lost it was in the parking lot of a hardware store, and it turned up months later and miles away. Only the American cash was gone, but that dollar was still tucked inside. Jacques was right, and I will always remember his kindness and generosity. Click here to see the dollar and a few more photos from our trip.

Oh, and a couple of tips: If you decide to make a six-thousand-mile trip, be sure the windshield wipers work on your vehicle. Ours never did, though having a nearly vertical windshield helps. And I wouldn’t recommend making the return drive from Montreal to Los Angeles in one sixty-nine-hour stretch either.

-Hank

"The Road Trip," from The Saturday Morning Post at hankfrazee.com