Father, daughter set out on a trip of a lifetime

Julie Langenfeld has been planning this trip for seven years. The car has been waiting longer.

Now, the 16-year-old Cape Girardeau native has the license to make her 10,000-mile dream trip a reality. She's headed out with her dad, Mark Langenfeld, on a father-daughter road trip across the continental United States in a 1968 Mercedes-Benz 250 SE. Julie will be the third generation of her family to take "the Benz" out for a spin — a tradition started 39 years ago by the grandfather she never knew.

"There's a really deep emotional connection for me," she said. "Since I never did meet my grandpa, whenever I hold the steering wheel that he held, I sort of feel him."

Mark Langenfeld said his dad bought the car when it was just a year and a half old. Mark first drove it while he was in high school, and later saved the car from rusting away after his father's death in 1971. Julie remembers pretending to chauffeur her sister around in the old car when she was 3 years old. Now she'll have the chance to drive her dad around — though they'll be sharing the driving duties. After all, Julie just got her driver's license three months ago.

She said she's especially looking forward to seeing the Grand Canyon and driving the Benz down Route 66 and across the Golden Gate Bridge. Their adventure will take them west, east and about everywhere in between. For Mark, it's a chance to visit Montana and Rhode Island, the two states he's never visited.

"What really appeals to me is to sample the entire country in a short time frame," he said.

They have a departure date penciled in for Monday, and hope to make about six hours in the car each day, covering 300 to 350 miles. They'd also like to squeeze in one 1,000-mile day.

Mark is determined not to let the rising price of gas keep them in park this summer, despite driving a vehicle that gets about 15 miles per gallon.

It isn't getting any cheaper, he said.

With a gallon of fuel above $4 in many places, today's prices stand in deep contrast to the 29 cents per gallon his dad first paid to fill up the tank.

Father and daughter have spent the last several months getting the Benz in shape. They've dealt with a horn problem, broken light bulb terminals, old fuses and fuel injectors, and a broken passenger window crank that's kept the door panel off for the past five years.

"That got to be a project," Mark said.

Anything Julie's grandfather touched, however, has to stay.

They're packing up two bicycles in the trunk, along with some sleeping bags for those occasions when they might find a place to camp out. The rest of the time will be spent in hotels, and with friends and family along the way.

Mark and Julie call it the trip of a lifetime. Friends have offered suggestions on where to stay or what to do. But above all, the duo said it's a family journey — a time to enjoy the country together before returning to their respective worlds as a health professor at Southeast Missouri State University and a junior at Central High School.

"There's stereotypes that teenagers want nothing to do with parents," Mark said.

Not so with Julie, who said the idea for this drive came out of her love of the car, roads trips and her dad.

And if her grandpa were still here today?

"I think he'd want to be riding along," Mark said.

bschraum@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 210