1991 Road Trip Day 1 Afternoon | California Route 1-Santa Cruz | My First Self-Service Gas Station Experience

Bay-Mission Market Liquors in Santa Cruz, California, photographed during a Route 1 road trip in May 1991. A small neighborhood liquor store that has since been transformed into a surf shop. — Santa Cruz, CA, USA — May 1991 ·Velvia 50

ROAD TRIP 1990–1992

May 1991. It was a road trip that began in an era before GPS and smartphones, guided only by a paper map spread across the passenger seat. This is a record from the afternoon of Day One on California Route 1, in the coastal city of Santa Cruz. It tells the story of a young traveler’s first experience with self-service gas stations, oversized American convenience-store treats, and the small but meaningful moments of imitating the locals and gradually finding his way into the rhythm of everyday American life.

An Endless Coastline

I continued south on California Route 1 from San Gregorio State Beach, guided by nothing more than a paper map and a vague determination to keep heading toward whatever waited farther down the coast. To my right stretched an endless ribbon of Pacific blue. To my left rolled gentle green hills that seemed to rise and fall with the rhythm of the ocean itself. The scenery was undeniably beautiful, yet hour after hour it barely changed. Cattle grazed on narrow strips of coastal grassland. High above, hang gliders drifted across the sky, while paragliders searched for lift over the lower ridges. Along the shoulder, windsurfers folded brightly colored sails beside dusty vehicles parked near the beach. Every direction looked like a postcard.

Yet there is a point where beauty begins to test a traveler. The longer I drove, the more it felt as though nature itself had challenged me to a contest of patience. I was surrounded by freedom, yet I remained an outsider looking in, a spectator peering through the frame of a giant American painting. There was exhilaration in that feeling, but also a faint loneliness. The landscape belonged to itself. I was merely passing through it.

The first signs of change appeared gradually. The hills lowered. Scattered barns emerged from the greenery. Utility poles and power lines began running alongside the highway. Human traces slowly returned to a world that had been dominated by open space and ocean. Then, almost without warning, the tiny town of Davenport appeared. A restaurant, a hotel, a general store, and little else. The entire place seemed to pass beneath my wheels in less than twenty seconds. By the time I realized I had entered town, I was already leaving it behind. America was enormous, yet some of its towns were astonishingly small.

The World Changes

The landscape continued to change, little by little. Utility poles and power lines now lined both sides of the highway, and mailboxes began appearing at regular intervals. More houses appeared. Farmland spread out across the countryside. Then came even more houses. Suddenly, the road widened into four lanes. Somewhere along the way, the ocean had drifted farther away, now visible only as a thin blue strip on the horizon.

Then, as if a video game had suddenly switched to a new stage, the scenery changed completely. I had arrived in Santa Cruz. Residential neighborhoods. Traffic lights. Shopping centers. Supermarkets. Fast-food restaurants. Church steeples crowned with crosses. It was the first real town I had seen in quite a while.

At a red light, I suddenly remembered that my Canon T90 was out of film. I quickly pulled out a fresh roll of Velvia and loaded it into the camera. The light turned green. I snapped the back shut in a hurry and pressed the accelerator as the T90 automatically advanced the film to the first frame with its familiar whirring sound.

The lively streets energized me. Part of me wanted to park the van, grab my camera, and spend the afternoon wandering through town. But the trip had only just begun. That temptation would have to wait. At the next stoplight, I decided to capture at least a small piece of the atmosphere around me. Through the driver’s-side window, I pointed the camera toward a modest neighborhood supermarket and pressed the shutter.

At the time, it meant nothing. Just another photograph. The young traveler behind the wheel had no way of knowing that thirty-five years later the image would still survive, or that the supermarket itself would one day become something entirely different.

A glance at the dashboard interrupted the thought. The fuel gauge was pointing toward an increasingly lonely position. I eased into a gas station across from a red-brick church near the center of town.

For the young man I was in 1991, the real challenge of the day was about to begin.

Unknown Territory

In 1991, self-service gas stations had already become standard across California. Back in Japan, attendants handled everything. They guided you to the pump, filled the tank, cleaned the windows, and sent you on your way. Here, none of that happened. First you walked inside and prepaid in cash. Then you returned to the pump and filled the tank yourself. If money remained, you went back inside for your change. Even choosing fuel seemed intimidating. There were three grades—Regular, Plus, and Premium—and each represented another opportunity to make a mistake.

None of it was actually difficult. It was simply unfamiliar. What if I couldn’t understand the cashier’s English? What if a line formed behind me? What if I took too long and irritated everyone around me? The worries were irrational, but they occupied my mind anyway. Then I noticed the price. Regular gasoline was roughly one dollar per gallon. Even a full tank cost less than a twenty-dollar bill. To someone arriving from Japan, it felt almost unbelievable.

Taking a breath, I stepped out of the car and headed toward the convenience store attached to the station. Just as I reached the entrance, a large local man emerged carrying a donut wrapped in wax paper in one hand and a paper cup of coffee in the other. Despite having both hands occupied, he held the door open and waited for me to enter. I thanked him quietly. He smiled and nodded. The entire exchange lasted only seconds, yet it left a familiar impression. I had seen similar moments repeatedly since arriving in America. Nobody appeared to think they were doing anything special, but every time it happened I felt a small warmth. This was a country built around doing things yourself, yet it never felt as though people were completely alone.

Choosing for Yourself

Inside, the smell reached me before anything else. Coffee, sugar, baked dough. It was impossible to ignore.

The coffee came first. Everyone else seemed to fill their cups to the absolute limit, so I copied them. I grabbed a large paper cup, lifted the oversized dispenser, and poured until the liquid nearly reached the rim. In my enthusiasm I spilled a little and hurriedly snapped on the plastic lid before disaster struck.

Near the register stood a clear acrylic dome filled with oversized muffins, donuts, and cinnamon rolls that looked twice the size of anything I had seen back home. The sweet aroma filling the store came from there. Like the gasoline and the coffee, nobody handed anything to you. You selected it yourself. Lifting the dome released an even stronger wave of sugary air. I chose a giant donut with a pair of tongs, wrapped it clumsily in wax paper, and dropped it into a small brown paper bag before heading to the register. In hesitant English I explained my pump number and handed over a twenty-dollar bill. The cashier simply nodded. No conversation. No complications. Oddly enough, I enjoyed the simplicity.

From Spectator to Participant

Back at the car, I set the coffee and donut near the dashboard and began fueling up. Then I noticed the same man from the doorway standing beside the next pump. He had locked the nozzle handle in place and stepped away while gasoline flowed into his tank. During those few minutes he casually ate his donut and cleaned his windshield with the station squeegee. Objectively, he was just a local father stopping for gas on an ordinary afternoon. Yet somehow he looked perfectly at home in the world around him.

Without thinking, I decided to imitate him.

I took a bite of the donut. It was every bit as sweet as it looked. Then I grabbed the squeegee from the bucket beside the pump and began attacking the windshield. The glass was covered with insects that had met their end somewhere along Route 1. Donut. Squeegee. Donut. Squeegee. The routine sounded effortless in theory, but in practice it was surprisingly awkward. The bug stains refused to disappear. I probably looked ridiculous. More than once I wondered whether everyone around me could tell I had no idea what I was doing.

Yet the embarrassment was overwhelmed by something stronger. Excitement. The simple pleasure of trying. For the first time that day, I wasn’t merely observing America through a windshield. I was participating in it. Awkwardly, imperfectly, but genuinely.

Everyday America

All day I had been watching America. The landscapes, the towns, the people, the habits that seemed ordinary to everyone except me. Somewhere between the gas pump, the coffee counter, and the donut case, that distance had quietly begun to disappear.

You poured your own coffee. You picked your own donut. You pumped your own gas. You cleaned your own windshield. At first the system seemed almost impersonal, a world where nobody helped because nobody needed to. Yet the more I participated, the less true that felt. The country was practical, efficient, and undeniably rational, but it wasn’t cold. I kept thinking about the man who had held the door open despite having both hands full. Perhaps that was why small acts of kindness stood out so clearly. When people were expected to take care of themselves, even a minor courtesy carried real weight.

When the fill-up was finished, I picked up an empty can of RC Cola that had been rolling around on the floor of the van. With a casual one-handed toss, I sent it toward the trash bin beside the pump. The can traced a perfect arc through the California afternoon air and disappeared cleanly into the opening. Nothing but net. It was a beautiful shot. Instinctively, I glanced around to see if anyone had noticed. No one had. The only person impressed by the accomplishment was me.

I went back inside to collect my change. A customer ahead of me pulled a crumpled wad of bills from his jeans pocket and handed them to the cashier. I had seen the same thing repeatedly since arriving in California. Americans seemed perfectly comfortable stuffing money into their pockets instead of carefully folding it into wallets. When my turn came, I collected my own change and, without thinking, shoved it into my pocket as well.

As I headed toward the exit, a family approached from outside. Instantly I remembered the local dad from earlier. Before I had time to think about it, I found myself holding the door open for them. Whether I looked natural doing it, I have no idea. But the family smiled, thanked me, and continued inside.

That was enough.

The tank was full and the windshield finally clear. Technically, the car was heavier than before, carrying another twenty dollars’ worth of California gasoline, yet I felt strangely lighter as I walked back toward the driver’s seat. Somewhere during that ordinary stop, I had stopped feeling like a tourist studying America from a distance and started feeling, however briefly, like part of it.

I settled into the driver’s seat and reached for the ignition.

Then I remembered something important.

I still had absolutely no idea where I was going to spend the night.

Continue the Journey →

▶ 1991 American West Road Trip Day1｜Road Map – Sacramento to Santa Maria

Articles from Day 1

Read the Japanese version →

Westbound, Then Skyward — Memoirs from the American West, 1990–1992 —

— Road Trip Day 1 (Afternoon) — Santa Cruz – Coffee, Donuts, and a Tank of Freedom (1991) —