From the searing heat of Los Angeles to temperate nights in Palo Alto, from inner-city Los Angeles to posh Beverly Hills, and from Mission Beach in San Diego to Evergreen Baptist Church in Irvine, the Generation Next team traveled far and wide to spend time with a mixture of young adults.

The journey began July 26 in Los Angeles, where Judy Woodruff presented the Generation Next project as part of the televisions critics tour. Four Generation Next segments are slated to run on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer during the fall of 2006. Then, an hour-long documentary will air on PBS in January 2007.

As Judy made the pitch to the media, the RV headed south to the Orange County Fair, where, amidst an All American Rejects concert, the kiosk interviews officially commenced with conversations about "friends with benefits" and visiting tattoo parlors with parents.

On July 27, Judy sat down with a group of 16-to-17 year olds for a focus group led by marketing expert Jane Buckingham. This diverse group of young people discussed everything from MySpace to sexuality to cheating in school.

That evening, the group stopped by Brendan Docherty and Genevieve Sparling's house in Santa Monica. Both Gen Nexters are transplants from the East Coast. They came to work in the video game industry and writing, respectively. They've both succeeded; Genevieve works for the television production, "Smallville," while Brendan works for THQ, a video-game developer. Brendan and Genevieve were joined by their friend, Dan Thomsen, who works in television. The three friends told Judy about what it was like to move so far away from home, how they stay in touch with their parents, and how Sept. 11 impacted their life decisions.

"If there's anything I wanted to do with my life, [Sept. 11] kind of underscored that I should just try and do it and go for broke, because who knows what's gonna happen tomorrow. And, it did come out very cheesy. But it's ... it's how I felt and here I am," Dan said.

The next day, July 28, began a mish-mash of assorted interviews with two Gen Nexters: 24-year-old University of Southern California graduate Lisa Higaki and Leo Vasquez, a 22-year-old gang member and toilet installer.

Lisa, a Japanese-American, works for Muse, an advertising agency in Beverly Hills. We first went to Muse to observe Lisa at work. Judy sat in on an intergenerational workplace meeting run by Jo Muse, the company's founder. Jo has an assortment of Generation X and Next employees at the firm. The group engaged in a spirited back and forth about the differences between young workers and their older bosses.

Later in the week, we caught Lisa in Pasadena, shopping with her sister Lauren. Lisa and Lauren have grown increasingly close since college. However, Lauren -- the "cooler" of the two sisters -- just accepted a job in San Francisco. We spent a few moments with Lauren as she moved out of her apartment, but spent more time alone with Lisa, talking about her strong religious convictions, her work at Muse, her relationship with her sister, and what it's like to be Japanese-American. Our time with Lisa concluded with us attending a retreat in Irvine with her "post-modern" church.

The other part of our Los Angeles equation was Leo Vasquez, a gang member of Mexican descent who spent much of his childhood in jail and juvenile detention as a result of his involvement with the Playboys, one of L.A.'s largest gangs. It wasn't until Leo was released, got married and had a child that he started to reevaluate his life plan. He now installs low-flush toilets for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and maintains a side business in construction. We spent time with Leo at his old stomping grounds near Belmont High School in the Rampart section of Los Angeles, and at his mother in law's house in Watts.

Then it was off to San Diego, where Judy went on-air with the Generation Y University radio guys, a trio of Gen Nexters who host a weekly radio program on all things Gen Next related. John Fiske and his childhood friends, Kris White and Brent Williams, all 22, usually start their show with a quick recounting of their weekend exploits, and then move to more serious discussions about issues impacting Generation Next. After interviewing Jean Twenge, the author of "Generation Me," the three invited Judy into the studio, where she peppered them with on-air questions about their generation's political views, their thoughts on social issues and about life as young adults in San Diego.

The RV pulled a quick U-turn after the San Diego stop, and headed back up the coast to Palo Alto, just south of San Francisco. Palo Alto is the home of Stanford University and our ultimate destination, the social networking site Facebook.com. Judy interviewed Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, a 22-year-old Harvard dropout, and a group of young Facebook employees. Read more about Judy's impressions of Facebook here, and David's blog about the Facebook group's resistance to labeling their generation as "different."

During all the interviews and filming, young people lined up to contribute to the RV kiosk at a variety of locations up and down California, from University Avenue in Palo Alto, to the Walgreen's near Echo Park in Los Angeles, to Pacific Beach in San Diego. Check out the team's blog entries for more about the cast of Gen Next characters who stepped on board at our various stops.

If you have any ideas or questions, please feel free to contact us at generation-next@newshour.org.

See you on the road!