Jeff Rabinak just couldn’t decide what he wanted to do. Summer vacation was two weeks away. He didn’t have an internship or job lined up.

Then it hit him: A cross country road trip.

Shortly after school let out, Rabinak and Erin Mulvehill, a senior photography major, packed up his Honda Civic and set off from Rochester, N.Y.

‘It seemed like I was running out of opportunities to do it since I’m graduating soon,’ said Rabinak, a junior film major. ‘The whole thing was I wanted to get out of my element and experience something completely different.’

With summer just days away, students might be wondering how to spend their months of freedom. Getting out on the road and seeing new places may be a good way to relax and enjoy what the country has to offer. It also gives you a chance to bond with friends.

Rabinak and Mulvehill planned to head north from Rochester, but the weather turned cold. So instead the pair decided to travel down the Blue Ridge Parkway, a highway down the East Coast that runs through various national and state parks.

The two students knew that they wanted to film and photograph their trip as much as possible. At one stop on the parkway, Rabinak and Mulvehill spotted a waterfall that they decided was a perfect spot to stop and take photos. Rabinak climbed up a few rocks to try and get closer to the waterfall to get a better photo, but he slipped and his lens cap tumbled into the water.

‘It was just a reminder to keep my wits about me,’ Rabinak said.

They then headed west and arrived at the Grand Canyon about two weeks into the trip. As Rabinak and Mulvehill pulled in, they saw the sun set over the canyon.

‘I had seen the Grand Canyon before but I was three so I didn’t really remember, and Erin had never been before so it was pretty awesome,’ Rabinak said.

The two spent some time at the canyon and it was there Rabinak said he felt challenged to bring home footage. After all, every tourist with a camera has taken a picture or shot a frame with the Grand Canyon in it. Trying to find a new thing to photograph was something special, Rabinak said.

Case Wayne also decided that last summer seemed like the perfect time for a road trip. So Wayne recruited three friends, packed up his Cadillac Catera and left their hometown on Long Island.

The key to Wayne’s road trip was lots and lots of planning.

A sophomore entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major, Wayne started planning potential pit stops over Christmas Break. He and his friends had their entire route planned out: Indianapolis, Chicago, Mount Rushmore, Colorado, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland would be the main stops.

The group ran into an adventure in Wyoming when their TomTom failed them. The GPS told them to turn off the main highway, but the road they wound up on was an old highway used years before and it was badly in need of repair.

They kept driving down the road further and further. Wayne nearly missed two antelopes crossing in front of them. Then things went from bad to worse: the car ended up slipping down a steep embankment and getting stuck.

When they couldn’t get the car out themselves, they tried to call AAA, but couldn’t get any service. They left the car, hiked past rattlesnakes and spent shotgun shells until they reached high ground where they could get a signal.

‘When they finally found us they had to tow us out,’ Wanye said. ‘And we drove back from Wyoming with my rear bumper bungee-corded to my car.’

Despite all the adventures and hours spent in the car, both Wayne and Rabinak said they would plan another road trip in a heartbeat.

‘It’s nothing you could possibly understand until you’ve done it yourself,’ Wayne said.

adbrow03@syr.edu

Published on April 27, 2009 at 12:00 pm