Best/Worst Nerdy Road Trip Stories: And the Winners Are…
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?Wading through the 150+ entries for the contest proved one thing to me: You are all my people. These tales of triumph, tragedy and a surprising number of road trips to Kevin Smith’s comic store reaffirmed my faith in humanity….or, at the very least, Topless Robot readers. Many of you inspired me with your stories of travel, celebrity encounters and undying love for giant robots and dinosaurs. Then some of you turned my smile into a frown with tales featuring everything from physical pain to furries. However, it is important to note that the entries for best road trip far outweighed those for worst. So maybe fortune has smiled on you thus far. But do you have the luck it takes to win a TR contest and the minuscule bragging rights that comes with such a prize? Let’s find out!
Let’s start with the honorable mentions for best road trip. We’ll kick
things off with a touching story of a mother-and-son bonding over
Dinobots. You may cry from reading this story. You’ll certainly want to
punch me for not giving it a T-shirt. But technically this doesn’t
really count as a road trip. Whoops.
Adam Ruining said:
Best: 1985, Terre Hill, Pennsylvania. I was 4 and my mom was recently
divorced. While she was at work, I spent a lot of days at preschool. I
can still remember one special afternoon when she picked me up. As
usual, I was ready to get home to watch He-Man and Transformers. I came
tearing out of the preschool, jumped in the car, buckled up, and didn’t
know why we weren’t going home already. My mom pointed down to the floor
of the car, and there he was:Grimlock, King of the Dinobots.
25 years later, I’ve never been more excited about getting into a car. And that Grimlock still stands proud on my bookshelves.
Lt. said:
I wish I had nerdier road trips to talk about. I’ve only made one,
and that was venturing up to Vancouver to meet Alessandro Juliani — Gaeta
on Battlestar Galactica and the voice of L on Death Note. He was in a
play so I went to see it. After the show, I actually got to meet him. I
gave him a teddy bear I made and we chatted for a little while. It was
seriously the best day of my life.
Arsenal said:
My friend and I did a cross country visit of all the DC cities or all
the ones they are based off of (more or less). We started in Coast City
(San Diego, yes it started at SDCC). Then drove to Keystone City (Kansas City), then to Central City (St. Louis). Then a detour to
Metropolis, IL, then to Gotham (Chicago — sure comics say it is in New
Jersey but that’s what city looks like in the comics), up to Midway
City (Detroit), then over to Metropolis (Cleveland, where the creators
of Superman are from). Then Star City in New Haven. We finished up in
New York City.There were many pictures and by the end of it we were basically
Xavier and Magneto, best friends that wanted to destroy one another,Did a lot of reading to see what cities the creators sampled from to make the comics.
D. Highmore said:
When I was 12 I made my dad* drive me to Hasbro UK’s headquarters in
Newport, Wales so I could ask them why the second series of GI Joe
Streetfighter II figures wasn’t out yet. I walked straight in, the
receptionist told me that no one could see me at that time, took my name
and address and sent me on my way.A couple of months later, a case of figures turned up on my doorstep, proving that sometimes toy companies can be awesome.
*technically he was going down that way on business, and it was only a short detour.
Going to San Francisco during
Halloween, getting into a robot club meeting at the NASA base, singing
karaoke with the guy who makes Happy Tree Friends, ate at the diner
owned by Green Day’s basist next to Pixar, and shopping at Japantown.
Ate at Escape from New York Pizza at both locations. Could’ve seen the
media think tank my friend works in, but they wouldn’t let me in without
a passport. Oh, and we ran into the Cantina Band outside the Cha Cha
Cha in the Mission district.
Porn road trip. First purchase at the waffle house porn store was Sex Trek: Deep Sex 9.
The
stink was so bad in the car that I wore a gas mask most of the way. 300
miles and many porn stores later we stop in a gas station somewhere
north of Chicago and ask the attendants where the nearest porn store
was.
Female attendant; “ummmmm”(looks uncomfortable)
Male
attendant; reaching over female attendant and pointing enthusiastically;
” 3 blocks that way take a right, 2 more blocks can’t miss it.”
The
trip ended at that store with the purchase of enema porn. We watched all
the porn in one of our parents basement that night…..that and 10 Things I hate About You.
GAJoe said:
This past January, three of my friends
and I drove 500 miles to Clarksville, TN, to visit Retro’s Classic
Arcade. Our goal was to relive the arcade experience of our youth. We
sang the main theme from Joysticks the whole way (I GOTTA HAVE A
QUARTER!). We played classic games from opening to close for two
straight days for 10 dollars. We ate pizza, drank beer, set high scores,
and fought the Mech Taco. For added nerdery, we visited the comic book
store next door and watched Shaun of the Dead. The highlight of the trip
for me, though, was when a ten year old boy, who’d been following me
around for half an hour, turned to one of my friends and said, “He’s
really good! He knows all the tricks!” The greatest trip and the
greatest compliment I’ve ever had. Sadly, Retro’s went out of business
the following month.
A couple years ago my family and I
traveled to the East Coast. While looking at a map to see where we would
be traveling to, I noticed Fall River Massachusetts was on the way. My
heart raced. I began careful negotiations with my parents, shamelessly
begging and pleading at intervals like a six-year-old going to
Disneyland for the first time. I can still hardly believe we actually
made it to the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast! The tour guide walked
us through every room of the house, detailing what happened the day of
the murder. I touched Lizzie Borden’s dress, and saw autopsy photos of
the Bordens (in glorious black & white). My mother, who likes murder
mysteries, was intrigued, while my father and brother were slightly
freaked out and disgusted. At the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast, you
can spend the night in the very room in which Mrs. Borden was hacked to
death. The rooms are tiny and the halls are narrow, and everything has
been immaculately arranged to resemble the day of the murder. I dream
about going back someday.
loretta obuchowski said:
BEST-has to be our during honeymoon last year we took some side road trips to get our dork on:
1. Went to the London Film Museum because there was a Dalek there.
2. Went to The Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221b Baker Street because those were my bedtime stories.
3.
Went to The Eagle and Child is a pub in St Giles’, Oxford, England on
Frodo and Bilbo Baggins birthday — did not plan that it just happened!
4. Went to the The Radcliffe Camera because Tolkien, said that the building resembled Sauron’s temple to Morgoth on N?menor.
5. Went to Scotland because there was Scotch there (not so much nerdy as yummy ohh so yummy)
In 2004, I joined some of my fellow fangirls in LA to see CSI‘s
Eric Szmanda (Greg) in a one-man show he was doing during the tv
hiatus. We’re chilling out in the lobby and two other members of the CSI
cast strolled in (Paul Guilfoyle and David Berman). We quietly freaked
out with joy, and when it was time to go see the show, Paul Guilfoyle
sat down next to me and one of the other girls. But, for us, it got
better. After the show we decided to hang in the lobby and see if Eric
came out. While we waited, I asked Guilfoyle and Berman to sign my
program, which they did (Guilfoyle even wrote “Follow the Evidence”)!
Then, Eric came out, and not only did he stop for a moment and chat with
us and take a photo, but he graciously accepted our geektastic gift of a
t-shirt that said ‘I was attacked by fangirls and all I got was this
shirt’. Best. Fan Trip. Ever. Best BIRTHDAY ever!
(Very) technically, I once went on a
150 mile round trip to a retired aircraft carrier… to research a
fanfic. I wanted to get the smell right.
VJASEditor said:
Best. While in England to see
relatives, my parents decided to take a road trip, visiting a friend of
my Dad’s in the middle of Wales, then head to Scotland so my
brother-in-law could see his grandma.As our drive would take us near Portmeirion, I was able to get us to
divert there, and I got to spend an afternoon running around the set of
the original The Prisoner.That was a brilliant day.
This is a very simple one: On a
beautiful Saturday morning I drove my 1972 electric green VW Karmann
Ghia on a little road trip to Darwin, MN to see The Biggest Ball of
Twine In Minnesota — the actual subject of the Weird Al Yankovic song. It
was housed in a special pagoda and probably twice the size of the car.
They even had pictures of Weird Al visiting it. Then I went to the Twine
Ball Inn, which was tastefully decorated with historical photos of and
newspaper articles about the Twine Ball, ordered the Twine Ball Omelette
(which had everything but twine in it) and bought a little twine ball
refrigerator magnet. Before I left I took a picture of the car parked in
front of the Ball — two weird things that look weird together. Oh, and
to top it off, one of my coworkers at the time had grown up in
Darwin… there in the presence of the Twine Ball. Side note: I used to
drive that Karmann Ghia through Mound, MN on my way to work.. Kevin
Sorbo’s hometown.
My best: I’ve carried Twinkies into the lobby of Nakatomi Plaza.
There is so much win in the above sentence I can barely comprehend it.
mimic91 said:
Best would be last year, not too long after I had gotten my car (first, by the way), I drove about five hours to go see the Robot Chicken crew at a roller rink, promoting the Star Wars: Robot Chicken 2 DVD. Along the way, I stopped at an internet cafe, and printed out the Dingos Ate My Baby band poster from Buffy.
I was hoping I might see Seth Green long enough to ask for an
autograph. What I got was to have a short conversation with Breckin
Mayer, got to skate with multiple stormtroopers, had Seth Green yell at
me to come skate with them, met the entire crew, got my picture with a
perfect R2-D2 model, and when I finally got to show Seth Green the
picture, he laughed loudly, called me awesome, and pulled me into a hug.
It’s lucky he couldn’t hear me over Gym Class Heroes playing next to
us, because the sound I made resembled a velicraptor from Jurassic Park.
King of Space said:
When I was young I loved dinosaurs. A lot. The day school let out for
the summer my dad picked me and my brothers up in Spiro, OK. We got on
I-40 and headed west. We stopped for nothing but gas. We were in a 1992
Geo Storm. At one point in Death Valley we were getting 96 miles to the
gallon. We stopped for Carlsbad Caverns and the Grand Canyon. We looked
around for 2 hours and hopped back in the car at both stops. We drove
for a total of 22 hours and had to be woken up to go to bed. We were
woken up again at 4:00 AM to go to Universal Studios. It was the last
day of the Jurassic Park exhibit. I got to pet the sick
Triceratops, the Velociraptor, and they had the Dilophosaurus rigged up
so that it spit water in your face. We had to detour on our way back to
Anaheim because the LAPD was blocking the freeway while they chased OJ
Simpson around in his white Bronco. It was a 26 hour trip from hell,
crammed in the back of a tiny car with my 2 brothers with few stops. We
went to every theme park in Southern California that summer. Universal
was the best.
Dinosaurs and witnessing history makes for a great day.
200 words is NOT enough to describe the sheer AWESOMENESS that was
the most amazing trip of my life but here goes. In July ’08, just before
Hellboy II premiered in theatres, Guillermo Del Toro threw a
sneak-peek screening & party with the film’s cast for his fans who
hang out on the message boards at DelToroFilms.com. We had to pay to get
ourselves to L.A. but the hotel room, dinner with Guillermo, and
the screening/party were all covered by the studio. Not only did I get
to finally meet friends I’ve known online for years but I ended up
sitting directly behind Doug Jones at the screening!
And to prove I
didn’t do anything special other than being damn lucky I’ll share this
story: As we were leaving the restaurant to go to the theatre a guy
walking along the sidewalk came up to Guillermo as he was climbing on
the bus. Dude just wanted to say he was a big fan and he couldn’t wait
to see HBII. Guillermo said “Really? Well come on!” AND PULLED THE GUY
ON THE BUS AND BROUGHT HIM TO THE SCREENING WITH US! Because GDT is
kinda awesome like that 😉
Envy. So much envy.
Zombie Wolfman said:
The BEST
roadtrip ever was to Redbank, NJ to buy comics. My girlfriend at the
time (now wife) was going out dress shopping with a bride to be, so me
and the girls fianc? decided to go buy some comics. We drive several
hours, and low and behold there’s a huge line! Kevin Smith was there. We
decided to wait it out and Brian Ohallahan mingled with the crowd. We
got inside and Kevin Smith put me in a bear hug, and Steve Dave took our
picture. In my panic I had grabbed a Green Lantern instead of Green
Arrow action figure for him to sign, so he drew an arrow on the crotch
and wrote “balls.”
It’s worth
mentioning again that there were a lot of entries about hitting Smith’s
comic store. I find this interesting given fandom’s backlash against
him. Hmm…
factorblank said:
We were on our way to DragonCon in Atlanta and some in our group
wanted to stop at a casino in Louisiana. Being a poor college student at
the time, I was only going to spend $5 (in quarters) on the slots. I
walked out with $150. When we finally got to the convention, I tracked
down Art Adams table in the Artists Alley and had him do a sketch of
Longshot. (I was also able to pay for gas for the rest of the trip.)
beletseri said:
In 2006 I did study abroad in Galway, Ireland. I made sure to show up
a week early and backpack from London, across England, then across the
sea and then to Galway.(I had to sleep in a pub on a ferry) Why?
Partially so that I could stop in Summerset and see all the Arthurian
landmarks ’cause I was/am a HUGE Arthur fan. I went to Glastonbury, saw
the Tor (Isle of Avalon) and King Arthur’s grave that probably isn’t. Oh
the sacred well. Turns our Glastonbury is fully of hippies, but it was
still fun.If I could have I would have spent two weeks just seeing all the
Arthur sights, I’m still bummed I’ve never been to Tintagel to see where
Arthur was born. All in all it was a pretty fun trip.
Dag said:
This happened last June. I went to laboratory on a business trip. I
was given an impromptu tour of the facility and taken through some areas
long closed off and seldom seen by outsiders. During the tour, I got to
touch and play with Enrico Fermi’s slug cutter that he used to make the
first uranium pile and create the first sustained nuclear reaction (ti
had been moved to there from Chicago). My hosts watched me get all
excited and started reciting the use of the cutter and explaining what
had been done. My audience were all Ph.Ds in chemistry and physics and
grinned while went on and on. When I was done, two of the physicists
looked at me and said: “Wow, I didn’t know half that stuff..”I had a major nerdgasm right then and there all over the floor. Best trip ever!
The honorable mentions for worst road trip and the winners after the jump!
—-
Screampants said:
So… I went on a roadtrip trying to find Mission City from the Transformers live action movie… only to realize that the city didn’t in fact exist. That roadtrip of nerdery quickly turned to a roadtrip of shame, although I did end up in Disneyland so I guess that is okay.
Maps are more than meets the eye!
Paul said:
So, the last time I went to E3 (2002), I broke the bank. The hotel, under my card, and several people didn’t bother to pitch in. Walking home from the convention one night, I got mugged, and when I brought out a pocket full of change, the guy looked at me in disgust and went away. But, to cap it all off?
LAX stole the XBOX out of my suitcase, and when I tried to make a claim, LAX said it was the airline’s fault, the airline said it was LAX’s fault, and I never ended up getting the money back for it.
Fuck L. A. Fuck that town right in the ear with a twelve inch cock made out of razor wire and rotten cheese.
Cue Death Cab for Cutie’s “Why’d You Want to Live Here…”
theholyfx said:
I was 8 years old. It was the week before my birthday. My parents gave me the choice, i could pick anywhere within driving distance. Now I am in Kentucky, driving distance consisted of the beach, Disney World, and Several Theme parks (Six Flags over Kentucky, Six Flags over Georgia, Kings Island, to name a few). So where did my 8 year old brain pick, Metropolis, Illinois. Home of Superman. Turns out its home of a superman statue and a small 2 room museum/comic store that was closed for fumigation the week we went. So instead of Disney, instead of the beach.. i got to spend 4 days looking at a statue… A crappy statue with flaking paint.
The Man With Two Brains Said:
Worst: Okay, so I must’ve been seven or eight at the time since Episode I hadn’t come out and there was an exhibition at the Smithsonian for the Special Edition films. I’ve lived in Michigan my entire life, so while going to that wasn’t the entire point of the Washington D.C. vacation, I’d say the fact that we road-tripped there makes it count. Anyway, when we actually got to the city, my grandma got completely lost and we ended up driving around the perimeter of the city for literally EIGHT HOURS before I convinced her to ask for directions! And these were ‘kid hours’ so it felt even more like forever than it would to myself as an adult, and this was after a full day’s drive already! The absolute worst thing about it, though… at least on regular bit of a road trip you’ve got changing scenery to keep you vaguely entertained, right? Well, no such luck here! We passed the Washington Monument 58 times. Fifty. Eight. Fucking. Times! Aside from the Star Wars exhibit, the rest of the week long vacation felt pointless because we’d seen it all already way too many goddamn times.
Izandra said:
Worst trip: Four of us headed to SoCal for an extras shoot for the first Spider-Man movie. It was supposed to be only three of us, but one friend invited a stranger to us other two without asking us, and we only let him come because he said he would drive. While there, one night our driver took off to party with some friends, got pulled over for something, and the next morning when we woke up we found out he’d been driving without a license because of a DUI, and his car was impounded. I was forced to rent a car (I was the only one over 25) and drive everyone back home. It was a terrible trip home because I don’t do well driving for long distances, and I was nodding off in the sun, and the only other friend that could drive (the friend that invited the loser had no license) got an infected toe so it hurt for him to put any pressure on it, like say, pushing a gas pedal. I made him drive part of the way anyways since at least he would stay awake and not drive us into oncoming traffic.
Worst of all, Izandra never got to meet Macy Gray.
Cprl_Kool said:
I was visiting family in NYC and wanted to check out the neighborhoods in NYC and check out off the comic stores and all that, while I was out I was told to stay away from Hell Kitchen I did find Yancy Street from Fantastic Four and saw a fat transvestite with no teeth who offered me something called a gummer.
We’ve all been there man, we’ve all been there.
Rocco said:
Worst: After my parent’s divorce, we needed my father to sign papers and agreed to bring his stereo to him. We decided it would be hilarious if we met him in Hell. Hell, Michigan that is. It was a 7 hour drive for us and 1 for him. We planned out all kinds of word puns like barefoot through hell, etc. I so wanted to say I left my father in hell. We calculated the exact retail price to get $6.66 on a receipt from various chain businesses, to keep as souvenirs. We even decided to drive from Hell to Paradise MI. My father is one of those retarded hypocrites who thought Disney and Anime would teach me Satanism through big eyed rodents singing about family values… or something. So I was surprised he agreed to meeting us there. My mother, her boyfriend, my friend, and I all set out for Hell, but it was not meant to be. Construction got us lost for a few hours and we decided to meet in Flint. If I win I can say. “I tried to go to Hell but all I got was this awesome T-shirt.”
You didn’t win. I’m a dick.
Raiders of the Lost Snark said:
Let’s see..my worst roadtrip only lasted about 5 minutes. I was going to attend the only con close to me, 100 miles away in Knoxville, TN, when I found out Irvin Kershner was going to be there as a last minute guest. at last, the director of MY ALL TIME FAVORITE MOVIE!!!!..so as i loaded my ESB poster in the truck and started down the road, I got to witness a glorious spray of anti-freeze as my head gasket decided to blow…the suck part? My dad runs a car rental licensee and still wouldn’t rent to me becauseIwas 24 instead of 25.
And the winner for the best road trip goes to:
Shulkie said:
Because my parents were AWESOME, they decided that for my graduation present we would go on a family trip to Britain on a HARRY POTTER tour. All of us crowded in a bus driving from London to Glasgow. I was SOOO freakin’ excited. The first night there I took a shower and tripped out of the shower, smacking my chin open and biting through my lip. My parents refused to take me to a hospital for stitches, so I had to wear bright blue band-aids on my chin, which show in all of my pictures from the castle to the place they filmed Diagon Alley. It also bled for 4 days. Old people stopped me and asked me if I cut myself shaving, which is OBVIOUSLY hilarious bc I’m a girl. >:( What was supposed to be a magical Harry Potter roadtrip thru Britain has left me with a lovely scar of my own…
To be fair tho, it was still a fucking awesome trip.
Shulkie had to bleed her way through the UK in order to take a Harry Potter tour, I think that’s more than enough reason for her to win a shirt (hopefully she won’t ruin it with her own dripping plasma). Now on to the winner for the worst trip:
RoboTom said:
Okay, at the time it was the worst, as the pain subsided, definitly the best. My friend and I rode our bikes from Kingston, Ontario (Canada) to attend GenCon in the summer of 1990. We were broke and stupid university students with no car and a lifelong dream to attend GenCon. So, being stupid, we rode our bikes, and slept in fields and woods and were hassled by border guards and chased by small town police and arrived to find we did not budget enough money to rent a hotel, so we snuck into the Holiday Inn and used the shower in the pool area. Hurt like h**l and we definitly added to the greasy/smelly gamer stereotype…but as the credit card ad’s proclaim, it was priceless. Especially now, twenty years later and foggy memories diminsh how much it bloody hurt!!
RoboTom’s story shows a sincere commitment to nerdery that demands to be rewarded. Making his story even better is how he now looks upon the miserable experience with fondness. Well done good sir.
Thanks to everyone who entered. May all of your journeys be packed with geeky chaos.
About The Author
Chris Cummins is a pop culture writer and Archie comics historian who has contributed to The Robot's Voice, Den of Geek US, Philebrity, Geekadelphia, Uproxx, and Unicorn Booty. He is the co-producer and co-host of Nerd Nite Philadelphia, and is regularly involved in producing and hosting New York Super Week events. In 2014, Chris began Sci-Fi Explosion, a mix of live performance, trivia and funny clips celebrating the weirdest in science fiction that regularly travels around the United States. He wrote the introductions to the compilations Archie's Favorite Comics From The Vault and (with Paul Castiglia) Archie's Favorite High School Stories. You can find Chris on Twitter at @bionicbigfoot and @scifiexplosion.