Roadtrip redux

Marisa O’Neil

Like many recent college graduates, Nathan Gebhard, Mike Marriner and

Brian McAllister, still didn’t know what they wanted to be when they

grew up.

Fresh out of Pepperdine University in 2001, Laguna Beach residents

Gebhard and Marriner, both 27, and 29-year-old McAllister of Newport

Beach, decided to buy a 15-year-old RV and drive across the country,

talking to people about their possible career paths. In the process,

they found out what they wanted to do -- and realized they were

already doing it.

Their uncertainty and wanderlust produced a documentary, “Roadtrip

Nation,” which aired on PBS. It also led to two books and a second

road trip with a group of three students and recent graduates. This

week, three RVs loaded with nine students selected from colleges

across the country will hit the road for three more adventures.

And the three friends will be along for the ride again.

“So many people at the beach sit there and wonder: ‘What are we

going to do with our lives?’” McAllister said. “We decided to do

something about it.”

It was 2001 when they bought their first RV, the Legend, from

McAllister’s parents for $8,000 and lined up as many interviews as

they could on a 15,000-mile, meandering coast-to-coast route. Then

they went to a local electronics store and “filled out credit card

applications like candy” to finance video cameras to film their

experience, Gebhard said.

They returned with 460 hours of raw footage of interviews with

people including the chairman of Starbucks, U.S. Supreme Court

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, and “Manny the Lobsterman” from Maine.

“It was such a tough thing to book interviews,” Gebhard said. “It

was kind of a self-selecting process. If they couldn’t find the time

for us, it wasn’t worth doing the interview.”

What had started as a journey of self-discovery took on a life of

its own, generating media buzz, a book deal and the PBS show.

And they were surprised to discover that many successful people,

such as Dell Computers founder Michael Dell, hadn’t always known what

they wanted to do with their lives, either.

“It’s not just us,” McAllister said. “This issue affects an entire

generation.”

Earlier this year, the three friends hit college campuses to

recruit the next generation of road trippers for this summer’s three

cross-country excursions. Each time, they brought the green-and-blue

Legend and their stories.

“I was graduating soon and not sure what I wanted to do,”

21-year-old Sacramento State student Gloria Pantoja said. “I saw

their presentation and thought: ‘They’re speaking to me.’”

Pantoja, her 19-year-old brother Bernardo and her 23-year-old

sorority sister, Cristina Barajas, worked on readying their RV on a

Laguna Beach street Wednesday, putting signature “Roadtrip Nation”

stickers on it, cleaning the kitchenette and getting driving lessons

in the behemoth vehicle.

They will leave Laguna Beach today and head up to San Francisco,

where they will officially start their five-week trip across the

center of the country, finishing in New York. Two other RVs, carrying

students from the University of Chicago and New York’s Pratt

Institute, will take southern and northern routes before meeting up

in New York.

All the students have lined up their own interviews along the way,

including ones with a pyrotechnics expert, child psychologist, Native

American leader and a ghost hunter in New Jersey.

“I may never do [ghost hunting], but obviously they found

something they like,” Bernardo Pantoja said.

Each of the three motor homes will house three students and one

cameraman. Gebhard, Marriner and McAllister, will tag along, cameras

in tow.

“As long as there’s fuel in the tanks, we’re out there,”

McAllister said.

* MARISA O’NEIL is a Times Community News reporter. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4268 or by e-mail at marisa.oneil@latimes.com.