Nearly 30 years ago, I went on my first beach trip without my parents.

I was 16 and the family vacation planned for that year was a trip to Canada. I had no interest in going to Canada with my parents. I had a large interest in going to Myrtle Beach without my parents.

They actually let me off the Canada hook with surprisingly little contention. My friend Gene Helmick and I drove my 1970 Chevy pickup from Johnson City, Tenn., to Myrtle Beach. It took us about eight hours, counting a lengthy stop to do some shopping at Jimmy Carter's Fireworks.

Once there, it took us about two minutes to bury the rear axle of that truck in the sand. They don't let you drive on the beach in Myrtle Beach, but 16-year-old mountain boys have to learn that the hard way.

We didn't have money for hotel accommodations, so we spent the week camping at the state park. It was pitch-dark by the time we backed into our campsite.

Along with the sun streaming through the windows of the truck's camper top the next morning, there was singing. The hymn was both familiar and startling.

"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound ..."

In the darkness, we had chosen the site closest to the park's outdoor sanctuary. The back row of the congregation was almost close enough to sit on the tailgate of my truck.

The sermon didn't hurt us any, but the unexpected situation was a sign of things to come. We were pilgrims without a plan wandering aimlessly through the South.

On the way back home, we stopped again at Jimmy Carter's Fireworks, a huge tourist trap that had nothing to do with the president of the United States. It had everything to do with sucking stray teenagers off the highway like a giant strip of flypaper.

It took us 13 hours to get home from Myrtle Beach. Somewhere below Asheville, we took a wrong turn and didn't realize it till we passed a "Welcome to Georgia" sign.

We'd been too busy conducting a highly scientific experiment to notice we were headed in the wrong direction.

We were trying to calculate the top speed of a bottle rocket by launching them forward from the truck windows and measuring the miles per hour necessary for the vehicle to catch up before the rockets exploded.

We also determined that the stout metal dashboard of a 1970 Chevrolet pickup can easily sustain multiple detonations of firecrackers in the ashtray.

And yet, it was a complete mystery to us that not one of the young girls camping with their parents had been interested in accompanying us to the Myrtle Beach Pavilion for a round of dinosaur golf.

This weekend, I'm at the beach in Oak Island, N.C., for a golf outing with some buddies. I'm not sure why this trip made me think of the one 30 years ago.

Maybe because it's been a long time since I spent much time away from my family. And my wife and kids allowed me to go with practically no contention. They trust me to act like a responsible adult.

Lucky for them, there's no Jimmy Carter's Fireworks in North Carolina.

Mark Rutledge can be contacted at mrutledge@coxnc.com