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Road Tripping Down Memory Lane

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(If you just want to see pictures and ignore all the text, scroll to the bottom.)

A few weeks ago, I took a road trip that I’ve been taking for years – 24 to be exact.  Every year in July my family has packed up our van and drove up north to a little town in Michigan called Oscoda.  My grandparents have a condo right on Lake Huron and we get our own private beach.  It’s incredible.  There are so many great memories on that beach.  Some include puking and knocking out teeth, but most are quite enjoyable.

If you follow my blog religiously (please always tell me you do), you remember from my first post that I work in television.  Initially, I was worried I wasn’t going to be able to take time off to fly home.  In the television world, you usually can’t just book a week of vacation whenever you want.  You have to wait until you have a break between shows.  We were right in the middle of production, but since I have an awesome boss, she told me I should take the week off.  Sweet!

Just hearing the word Oscoda is one of the few things in life that can bring me instant joy.  The association is that strong.  Another would be Cinnamon Toast Crunch.  Because my family has been going to Oscoda for so many years, we’ve made a lot of great memories and traditions.

Some of my favorites:

  • Playing in the waves that were nearly two feet over my head.
  • Playing capture the flag on the beach after dinner.
  • Riding bikes into town to buy candy (and then always being reprimanded by my dad for buying too much).
  • Not being able to control the paddle boat and drifting out way too far from shore (not sure why this is a fond memory).
  • Spending hours in a small attic with six other kids (again, not sure why this is a fond memory).
  • Hitting golf balls on the beach.
  • Seagull chasing in our speed boat.
  • Late night swimming.
  • A huge storm flooding our parking lot.
  • Being able to see millions of stars in the sky at night.
  • Drinking around the bon fire for the first time (legally, of course).
  • Driving to Harrisville just for the ridiculously large ice cream cones they used to serve at The Cove.

My least favorite:

  • Knocking a girl’s tooth out with a golf club when I was four.  Her tooth is still messed up to this day.
  • Looking at a porcupine through binoculars and not being allowed to go pet it.
  • Getting small frogs thrown down my shirt after the big flood.
  • Getting grounded (probably for throwing bread) and missing one of our nightly bon fire.
  • Going to the 4th of July parade, standing at the end, and never getting candy because the people in the parade ran out. EVERY YEAR.  Why didn’t we move up to the front?!

road trip randy

Every year since 1990, a group of us kids shared these memories together.  This year we can add two more to the list.

In May, a Piping Plover decided to lay eggs in the middle of our beach.  For those of you who don’t know (I sure didn’t), a Piping Plover is an endangered bird in North America.  Apparently there are only three left in Michigan.  Because of this, officials closed off half our beach until September!  I was pretty mad.  And they gave that bird way more room than it needed, in my opinion! Think of roping off half of a football field for a potato.  Oh well, I guess if it keeps the bird alive, it’s all good.  And we still had plenty of room for our bon fires.

The other change this year was the addition of babies to our group.  What is it about babies that makes grown men and women change their personalities and act completely unlike themselves?  It was very bizarre to watch everyone talk like babies.  The oldest in my group of friends, Michelle, was the one who had twins recently.  They’re cool and all, but now I see why people say parenting is a full time job.  The twins didn’t let Michelle relax for one minute. Babies are so selfish.

I’ve noticed that within the past few years, we’ve been doing less and less of our yearly traditions in Oscoda.  We still go to the sub-par 4th of July parade, play on the beach, and have nightly bon fires, but something has changed.  Now we argue about politics, relax on couches after dinner, and complain about how much we just ate.  Don’t get me wrong, I still have a blast every year, but I think a big part of the appeal now is the nostalgia the place brings.

I guess I don’t like change and I don’t like growing up.  I’m a traditions guy.  I love traditions.  Last Christmas, my mom tried to put the presents under the tree a few days early because she thought they would look nice and wanted to enjoy them for longer than a couple hours.  I refused to let her do this.  Presents don’t appear under the tree until Christmas morning!  It’s tradition.

I think what I’m trying to say is that traditions seem to make activities better because of the memories attached to them.  The activity itself might not be that great.  Sitting in a hot attic?  Not that amazing.  But it was tradition (and we were weird).  Now that we have endangered birds and babies and politics changing our traditions in Oscoda, I guess it’s time to make new ones.  And maybe that’s a good thing.  But it might take me awhile to accept.

What does this have to do with road tripping?! Absolutely nothing.

Anyway, Oscoda taught me a couple things:

  1. Making new traditions can be a good.
  2. I’m not having babies until I’m 50.

 

Here’s a time lapse I made of the beach at night looking down towards the pier.  Turn on HD!

And here are a few more pictures I took with my new camera that I bought with my new money.

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Get ready for my next post to actually be about a road trip, in California, like my blog actually suggests.  Enough with the pointless, deep talks, Randy!

Stories

Go Trip Yourself!

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Thanks, WordPress.  Last week when I was setting up my blog, you asked me for my Site Title. Easy.  I like anything with my name attached to it: street signs, monuments, schools, etc.  Road Trip Randy was the obvious choice.  But after that, you told me I should have a tagline, too.  I hadn’t given a tagline much thought, but figured it must be a good idea if you were suggesting it.

Rewind two years.

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I’m on a boat in Vietnam (not the small one in the photo above).  My friends and I just signed up for a three-day boat cruise in Halong Bay, one of the seven natural wonders of the world! It’s cold and cloudy, but our captain assures us we’ll still be able to do everything on our itinerary including rock climbing, island camping, and cliff jumping.  Hours later he tells us that it’s all been cancelled due to the weather. Instead we’ll learn how to make spring rolls from the chef.  Unimpressed, we decide to go to our cabin and drink the 24-pack that we brought (snuck on) with us.

A couple months later, I’m in in China heading to the Great Wall.  I got a great deal on a packaged tour.  What I didn’t know is that before they take you to the Great Wall, they take you to a jade museum, a pearl exhibit, a tea ceremony, a silk shop, and a foot massage place.  Cool extras…unless they also take you to the fake Great Wall that’s nothing more than a fancy staircase.

Soon after, I’m in the sweaty, but awesome city of Bangkok, Thailand.*  I’m on a bus headed to go pet tigers!  We stop at a few places on the way and when we arrive at Tiger Temple, they tell us they’re about to close. They’ve already begun putting away the tigers!

What do these three stories have in common besides extreme momentary rage and depression?  Guided Tours.  You know what I say to that?  GO TRIP YOURSELF!  Side note: What’s great about this saying is that you can replace “trip” with another four letter word and it still accurately describes my feelings toward guided tours.

Guided and packaged tours can be okay… sometimes.  When you’re in a foreign country and you don’t speak the language, sometimes the easiest way to see the sights is to hop on a tour bus with a bunch of other people that look like you.  It’s easy to plan and very convenient.  However, the pros of guided tours end there.  Guided tours only want your money.  They’ll take you to the sites, but they determine how long you stay.  They determine what time you get there.  They determine what part of the attraction you go to.  They determine what stops you have to make before getting there.  They have complete control of your vacation from the moment you get in that van or bus to the moment you get out.

That’s why I like tripping myself. I control what I see.  Sure it’s a little more work and possibly a little more money, but in the end, well worth it.  In China, I was so disappointed with my Great Wall scam tour that I hired a private taxi the next day and spent three hours by myself at the real Great Wall.  It cost me $50 bucks and was one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had.  No more guided tours for this guy!

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And that’s why I love my new WordPress-inspired tagline.  It fits.  It has meaning that goes beyond the surface and its conspicuous, alternative insult.  It motivates you to go do things on your own and create your own path- to not just follow everyone else because it’s easy.  I struggled with this a lot as a kid.**  Don’t do something just because everyone else is doing it… unless it’s really, really fun- or something normal, like eating bread.

So the next time someone invites you on a great packaged tour, tell them to go trip themselves.  Make your own adventure.

 

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*Let’s clear this up so I don’t sound like one of those world traveling jerks.   That year of travel was cool, but the way I wrote it makes it sound like I just hopped to exotic locations whenever I pleased.  Most of my year in Asia was actually spend in an 8x8ft “classroom” with no window.

**As a kid, my parents and my friends’ parents always tried to warn my friends and me about peer pressure.  Whenever we did something just because someone else did it, they’d ask: “If so-and-so jumped off a bridge, would you??”  I always answered with a resounding “YES!”  It really annoyed them.  But honestly, what a silly question to ask a seven-year-old.

Stories

Welcome to Road Trip Randy, Now Here’s My Story

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When I was young,  I didn’t venture out much further than my neighborhood.  I was content.  When choosing a college, I didn’t even think about going anywhere out of state.  I was content.  And then I graduated college and something weird happened.  I wasn’t content.  I wanted more.  I wanted to see what else was out there.  Sure, I’d been on a few vacations out of state, but I could count those on my hand:

  1. The “You’re only a healthy family if you take your kids to Disney World at least once!” vacation.
  2. The educational Washington DC and Boston double-feature trip.
  3. The aunt’s wedding in Vegas when you’re nine vacation.  There was so much for me to enjoy on the Strip at that age!

For whatever reason, I didn’t really care about vacations very much (It was probably because I was just a miserable kid).  I was happy staying in my hometown, with the people I knew, doing the things that I enjoyed doing.

It wasn’t until after graduation and I became strange that I realized I might not want to spend the rest of my life living in my hometown.  Maybe I’ll move to another state someday.  Or even another country!

That’s when I decided to move to Korea.  Yep.  After spending my entire life living contently in Michigan and rarely stepping foot outside it’s borders, I decided I wanted to move to the other side of the world on a whim. My parents thought I was nuts.  But I was determined to do it.  And so I did.  And for a year, I lived in Seoul, South Korea teaching English.  I visited five other Asian countries and had the time of my life.  That year was when I finally learned just what else was out there.

So now I’m back in the States but no longer living in the Mitten.  I’ve moved all the way to the Golden State to pursue a career in film.  I’ve got an awesome job working in television, and when I have a weekend free or a break between shows, I try to fill it with traveling.  That’s where this blog comes in (about time!).

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Californians think they live in the greatest state in the world.  To them, there’s nothing better than their beloved bear, sunshine, and vineyards.  Well, I’ll be the judge of that.  So far all I’ve seen is copious amounts of smog, awful traffic, and hippies.  Yes, I live in L.A.  I’m hoping the rest of the state makes up this disappointment, because so far, I’m unimpressed.  They say you either love LA or hate it, and that’s so true.  I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t have a strong opinion about it either way.

My plan is to take road trips.  Lots of them.  Short trips to the OC, day trips into the Mojave Desert, and hopefully, eventually some extended trips up north to the national parks.  I’d love to say I’ll be doing this everyday, full time, and making you envious of my lifestyle.  But that’s not true.  As of now, I’m dirt poor.  It wasn’t until recently I bought a real bed.  For a year I was sleeping on an air mattress (3 actually. I’d buy a new one each time one popped), unemployed, and accumulating debt.  I’m finally starting to move up in the world.  I even have matching hand and shower towels.

After reading my childhood story and knowing my new life plan, I know what you must be thinking.  But you’re wrong!  I’m not some free-spirit hippie living a vagabond lifestyle.  I actually thrive on having structure and routine in my life. I enjoy doing work and making money!  Weirdly enough, I also just like traveling and not having a single place to call home (Sigh. I sound like such bag in the wind).

What I want from you:

A group of loyal followers that tells me how great I am.  And people who give me money to go on trips and endless compliments.  Just kidding.  Really, I just want to e-meet some cool people who share my interest in traveling and adventure, have mad love or hate for LA, and aren’t on the gluten-free diet because it’s trendy.

Let’s begin!