Many great adventures have started with a dream or a concrete inspiration.
This one started with a mass text.
Having just graduated from Plant City High School, Jake Fortune wanted to go on a cross-country road trip with some friends. When he sent the text, three of his closest friends — fellow Eagle Scouts Isaac Rivers, Mike Hahn and Randell “R2” Platt — jumped on-board.
“For about a month, we were going on about trying to figure out what to do,” Platt says. “And then, one day, we all just decided to tell our parents. We were like, ‘Hey, we’re going on this road trip after graduation.’”
They planned to travel all over the South, hitting popular locations such as New Orleans, Dallas, the Grand Canyon, St. Louis, Denver, Chicago and Detroit, before heading to Milledgeville, Ga.
Some of the parents laughed. None of them believed it.
“Until, like, the week before the trip, I don’t think anybody believed us,” Hahn says. “I told my parents and they were just kind of like, ‘OK, sure, you’re going to go on a trip.’”
For most of the parents, it didn’t sink in, until Hahn calculated a $1,300-per-person budget and created an Excel spreadsheet, covering every possible expenditure (including jokes such as, “Someone dies, and we need to buy acid to dispose of the body”), and emailed it to every parent. A Facebook page (“The Road Trip of Destiny,” which is still open and public) also was created, so that the boys could keep friends and family updated as they went along.
“I don’t think my parents really believed it, until we left,” Platt says. “We went and got breakfast, and then we left, and then my dad was like, ‘Oh, you’re actually leaving.’”
THE FIRST HALF
Pensacola was the boys’ first destination. Their plan was to go to the beach, but that didn’t work out. Instead, they bumped into some characters.
“We’re driving around, and we find these people that are LARPing,” Platt says. “It was a historical re-enactment.”
LARPing, for the uninitiated, is short for “live-action role-playing.” More often than not, it involves a group of people re-enacting medieval battles, or Lord of the Rings-style fantasy adventures. The LARPers were happy to pose for photos with the boys and even let them try on some of their gear.
“They gave (Jake) one of the helmets,” Platt says. “So, Jake puts the metal helmet on and, WHAM! He didn’t hit (Jake) as hard as he could, but, yeah.”
From Pensacola, they drove to New Orleans, for some sightseeing and authentic Cajun food. After spending the night in Baton Rouge, they made stops in Dallas and Albuquerque, N.M., before heading to the Grand Canyon.
ONE BIG DITCH
Sedona, the boys say, was the most visually striking stop of the trip.
“I could not get used to the time change in Sedona, so I would wake up at 4 a.m., go outside and wait for the sun to rise, and it was amazing,” Rivers says.
The image of the sun rising over Sedona’s big, red mountains might only be topped by seeing the Grand Canyon in person for the first time, in all its glory. So, of course the boys took advantage of the chance to goof around on camera there.
“So, me, Jake and R2, we were all going to take a picture near the ledge,” Rivers says. “You know, just standing there like buddies. Michael doesn’t like heights, so he was going to take it. Me and Jake are taking the picture and, halfway through, we’re like, ‘Where’s R2?’ I hear the pitter-patter of feet, and rocks falling, and I’m like ‘I can hear R2, but I can’t see him.’ As soon as we’re done, I look over, and there’s R2 below — exploring.”
Before that, he was pretending to be hanging onto the ledge for dear life.
“You keep wanting to go lower, to keep climbing down,” Platt says. “It got to a point where we were like, ‘We’re going to fall off and die. We’re not going to be able to get back up.’ So we just climbed back up and headed back on our way.”
After a five-day stay, the boys went back to Albuquerque for a night and then to Texas — but with a new goal in mind.
STOMACH OF STEEL
Two months ago, a 120-pound woman named Molly Schuyler set a world record at Amarillo’s Big Texan Steak Ranch by scarfing down two 72-ounce steaks in just 15 minutes. Fortune and Platt wanted to see if they could stomach one.
“You have an hour, and I did it in 59 minutes, 59 seconds,” Fortune says.
He got the T-shirt. Platt got sick halfway through.
“I looked over, and his face was just green,” Fortune says. “He grabs a bucket from across the table, he’s puking, and I’m yelling at him to get away from the table. He’s going to make me puke after I just ate a couple pounds of steak.”
Adding insult to injury, Platt’s inability to complete the challenge also stuck him with a $72 bill. Fortune dined for free.
After Amarillo, the boys realized they needed to get a move on to make it to Georgia for Independence Day.
RETURN TRIP
Their route to Milledgeville took them through Oklahoma City, Little Rock, Ark., and Birmingham, Ala. They made it to their destination — a friend’s lake house — on July 1. They spent five days boating, tubing, getting lost on a jet ski, launching fireworks and taking videos. Somehow, they had managed to completely avoid traffic and bad weather — until they re-entered Florida, which hit them with both.
“It turned into a nine-hour drive, from a five- or six-hour drive,” Hahn says.
On the plus side, the boys realized they had completely miscalculated their budget — each had spent only about $500, instead of the $1,300 or so that they had planned for. Coming home with a good chunk of their graduation money intact was a relief.
And, not long after they returned, the Fortunes held a party at their home to celebrate, watch videos and get filled in on whatever the boys didn’t post to Facebook.
This trip may be in the books, but the boys had so much fun that a sequel isn’t out of the question.
“It could happen again,” Fortune says. “If we do it, we’ll probably go north this time.”
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.
BY THE NUMBERS
BIGGEST EXPENSE: The group had to pay $200 for a broken boat propeller
67 HOURS: The total time the foursome spent driving.
ESTIMATED COST VS. ACTUAL COST: The travelers estimated they would need about $1,300 per person for the trip. They only spent a total for $500 each.
59 MINUTES, 59 SECONDS: The time it took Jake Fortune to eat a 72-ounce steak along with shrimp, a baked potato, salad and a roll.
$3.50 to $3.60: The average cost of gasoline from city to city.