When my younger sister, U.S. Air Force Major Christina Lynch, received orders to Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California, we began planning a cross-country road trip. With Christina’s cat Ginger as our companion, we hit the open road. Our journey took us from Fairfax, Virginia, to her new duty station across the United States.
Along the way, we visited our cousin in Independence, Iowa; John Wayne’s birthplace in Winterset, Iowa; the Hoover Dam in Boulder City, Nevada; and Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California. We had to adjust our route in California after flooding closed part of the Pacific Coast Highway, but we had mostly open roads and good weather for the entire trip.
Naturally, we stopped at many gas stations and convenience stores on our 13-state tour, which ended in San Francisco, near Travis. Here’s what surprised and delighted us at these essential retailers.
Day 1
Miles: 595
States: Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana
Our first priority after hitting the road Saturday morning was to find a travel center with a CAT scale to weigh my sister’s vehicle, an Air Force requirement to receive reimbursement for the drive. A Pilot Travel Center near Hagerstown, Maryland, fit the bill and we stopped there about two hours into our trip. We then spent the majority of the day driving on the Pennsylvania and Ohio Turnpikes before arriving at our hotel in Elkhart, Indiana.
Ginger slept through most of our stops.
Major Christina Lynch (left) and the author during a break in Utah.
The Hagerstown, Maryland, Pilot Travel Center gets our vote for the cleanest bathrooms we encountered during our entire trip. Spotless!
Day 2
Miles: 386
States: Indiana, Illinois, Iowa
Our second day of travel took us around Chicago and into Iowa to our cousin’s home near Independence. I was thrilled to find a TA Travel Center in Illinois that had both diet and regular Dr Pepper on fountain, so I could create my own Dr Pepper mix of mostly diet Dr Pepper with a splash of regular Dr Pepper (no fountain has ever had Dr Pepper Zero). The center also had tons of candy options (but not the Reese’s Nutrageous bar my sister craved) along with some unusual items, such as an entire display of hunting and carrying knives.
Easy to make my favorite fountain beverage, a mix of diet Dr Pepper and regular Dr Pepper, at the TA Travel Center in Illinois.
Day 3
Miles: 551
States: Iowa, Nebraska
After leaving our cousin’s, we stopped at a Casey’s for fuel and snacks, the first of our two Casey’s stops that day. I was happy to see Casey’s fountain had both Dr Peppers. It was a well-organized store with lots of snacks, fresh food and beverages. For lunch, my sister tried—and liked—a slice of Casey’s famous pizza. Casey’s gets our vote for the friendliest clerks along our trip.
Our morning stop had to include fresh glazed donuts from Casey’s. Delish!
One of the more unusual items in a Casey’s was the display of the ready-to-drink cocktail BuzzBall. Since we were driving, we had to skip this treat.
The volume of private label snacks, drinks and even ice cream (seven different half-gallon flavors) astounded me. I tried one of the pretzel snacks—yummy!
Day 4
Miles: 502
States: Nebraska, Colorado
We left Nebraska (and all those cornfields!) behind as we crossed into Colorado. Our first stop was the Colorado Welcome Center, along with a Shell gas station across the street. Then it was back on the road to beat the coming inclement weather heading our way—but we stopped later at a Kum & Go for snacks and gas.
Like Casey’s and other convenience retailers, Maverik has gotten into private-label products, including its popular jerky line.
Maverik had several self-checkout kiosks, the first we had seen on our trip.
Maverik had something I’d never seen before—a Dr Pepper slushie. While I wanted to try it, there was no diet Dr Pepper option to mix in, so I skipped the treat.
Day 5
Miles: 500
States: Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada
Our travels now took us through the back country of Utah, with few opportunities to stop. We did, however, manage to find a Maverik, which lived up to its Adventure’s First Stop branding.
Day 6
Miles: 424
States: Nevada, California
We finally enter California on Highway 15, and we immediately start seeing billboards touting the largest gas station in the state: EddieWorld. Naturally, we had to stop to see for ourselves—and the billboards weren’t lying! (For more about EddieWorld, check out “The Road Well-Traveled” in this issue.)
My sister found stuffed animals for her two kids from EddieWorld’s extensive plush animal collection.
I picked up some hot sauce for my husband from the enormous selection at EddieWorld.
Day 7
Miles: 231
States: California
Our final day of travel had arrived. We took our lunch break at an ampm store/Jack in the Box combo before heading out to drive the last leg of our journey to San Francisco.
For a small convenience store, ampm stocked many delights, including Reese’s Nutrageous candy bars—the first we encountered along our journey—and a Reese’s hot chocolate machine.
Just when we thought we’d seen everything, ampm surprised us by having two kinds of ice on fountain.
We couldn’t have made our seven-day journey without the help of convenience retailers. Whether filling up our tank or our bellies, convenience stores across the United States provided both sustenance as well as delights to make our trip even more enjoyable.
Convenience stores own road trips.
C-stores sell 80% of the fuel purchased in the country, as well as the snacks, drinks and meals that keep road trippers happy on their travels. This year, 65% of Americans say they will likely take a road trip during the summer, according to the 2023 NACS Consumer Fuels Survey. The top reason why: It’s fun (68% said so). And isn’t fun and a great experience ultimately what c-stores sell?
More findings from the survey: Women (73%) and people 65+ (72%) are the most likely to take a road trip motivated by the desire to have fun. And people have fond memories of road trips: Almost a third of likely road trippers (31%) are motivated because it’s something they did as a kid.
When Online Searching Fails
While we usually let the road signs point us to a gas station or convenience store, a couple of times, we used Google. On our first day, we needed gas but the next travel center off the Ohio Turnpike was too far away. I searched for gas stations to find the nearest one. A Marathon-branded station popped up a mile off the next exit, but as we took the exit, we spotted a station that didn’t show up on the search.
A few days later, in Utah, we wanted to stop and again searched for the nearest store to the highway through Google, which directed us to a location several miles off the main road. After visiting the store, we backtracked to the highway and discovered that a different store had been much closer than the one Google directed us to.
Both experiences reminded me how easy it is for convenience retailers to miss out on visits simply because Google and other search engines can’t find their locations. This problem is exactly why NACS created THRIVR, which is powered by SOCi. You can learn more at convenience.org/THRIVR.