Let’s sell the people who cross country a little swag

Old Dominion economic forecasters say gasoline prices are guzzling money that could’ve been spent on vacations.

The higher costs – to the tune of about $80 a month – are preventing the Hawaiian shirt crowd from leaving Hampton Roads. It’s also keeping vacationers from other states away, leaving us with a stash of “Virginia is for Hustlers” T-shirts.

Perhaps the forecasters have ignored the foot traffic. Perhaps they’ve failed to count what I see as the single fastest-growing demographic of people headed to the Oceanfront: the cross-country fanatics.

Due to its geography and promise of water, Virginia Beach has oddly become the starting and finishing line for a group that doesn’t need gasoline where they’re going. They think walking/riding/rollerblading across the country is a fine way to spend the summer, a perfectly lucrative way to raise money for their favorite charity and an outstanding way to get their smiling mug in the paper in the middle of August when news slows to a trickle.

It is a testament to the determination of the human spirit. Evidently, no one remembers that just over 200 years ago Lewis & Clark hiked a good part of the country without a GPS chiding their every turn or bumper stickers of the comic strip character Calvin urinating.

Consider this year alone:

- In February, a Kentucky pastor started in Virginia Beach and walked 3,100 miles because he thought it would help prevent drug abuse.

- In April, a Northern Virginia woman ran across the United States, starting at the Beach, in the name of sustainable food.

- In May, two Syracuse University students began biking across the country, believing they could help end poverty.

- Most recently, an Oregon man is raising money for his “Map of Heroes.” Who are the heroes? Dogs. Whose owners think dog cancer is expensive. His trek is expected to conclude in Virginia Beach later this month.

Ignore for a moment that taking two or three months off work or school  and volunteering at an organization for your cause would accomplish substantially more than walking or biking the barren highways of Nevada. Ignore the fact that the virtual cross-country route recommended by the federal National Health Survey starts in Yorktown, not the Beach, and that there is a “recommended route.”

And never mind that you’d probably be passing most of the traffic on I-264 while on foot.

Concentrate instead on the potential tourism dollars! Get people at their weakest and most vulnerable! Virginia Beach needs to take advantage of its geography as a fairly accessible and not-quite-easternmost city. Start charging these people!

Want a declaration from the mayor on your brave journey? $25.

A T-shirt that says “Virginia is for popping blood blisters?” $30.

And one more thing, before running into the sand and dipping a heavily calloused toe in the Atlantic as a way to celebrate the journey from California. Box up a little sand in a commemorative container. $50.

The problem isn’t the gas prices.

This is an evolving economy. We need to change with it.

If people are going to work this hard to get across the country, we need to remind them the trip is all about them.

It’s not about the journey. It’s about showing off the schwag picked up along the way.

  Mike Gruss, (757) 446-2277, mike.gruss@pilotonline.com