A Guy's Vacation Story

My memory of a guy's vacation actually goes back to high school. The trip included three male friends and me from my class in my senior year of high school. The three friends were Phil, Paul and Kim. We planned a trip from Estes Park, Colorado to southern California and Tijuana, Mexico.

My best friend Phil's father lived in Palm Springs, California so that would be our destination because we could stay there for free. We were high school students without a steady income so free was the best option we had. We started our trip early in the morning in Estes Park and started our drive towards Palm Springs. We planned on driving straight through, changing drivers along the way. We packed a cooler of water, soda and snacks and started on our trip.

Driving through Colorado on our way to Utah was pretty uneventful. We were all just excited to be taking on this undertaking of a trip minus parents and being on our own. Utah is fairly boring to drive through. It is really flat though we did get to see the Great Salt Lake. By the time we reached Nevada, darkness had already settled in. We changed drivers just before we entered Nevada. None of us had ever traveled out of Colorado on our own before so this was exciting. We drove through Las Vegas and were amazed by all the bright lights and the many people that flooded the sidewalks. We didn't stop though because, first of all, we were not old enough to go into any of the casinos and, second, we were on a mission to get to Palm Springs.

We finally made it into California in the early morning hours. The excitement started to wear off due to exhaustion. We again changed drivers and continued the trip towards southern California. We reached the traffic of southern California by early mid-morning and crawled at a snails pace towards our final destination. We stopped in Dana Point at a beach access/boat docking area. Here we got out, stretched our legs, played in the water and took a shower at the public showers they had there. We were refreshed and ready to take on the final leg of our trip.

Driving into Palm Springs we passed the infamous windmills on the hills just outside of Palm Springs. By now it was hot and we had no air conditioning in Phil's mustang. All the windows were down and hot, oven air washed over us. We finally made it to Phil's dad's house and we slept for a few hours soon after arriving. We visited with Phil's dad, ate dinner and went to bed because tomorrow we were going to Tijuana.

The next day we drove down to the border of California and Mexico, parked the car and prepared to walk into Tijuana. We encountered a group of four older ladies in the parking lot who were scared of going into Mexico by themselves and we agreed to escort/travel with them. I say older only because we were 17 or 18 and they were probably in their mid 20's. We had a blast in Tijuana visiting all the shops, buying souvenirs and being able to haggle the prices. We left there with some Mexican blankets and other trivial souvenirs that a teen-age boy would like such as a switchblade comb (which only worked for a couple weeks after we got back home).

We went home a different way, through Arizona, and were able to stop at the Grand Canyon. We only stopped briefly to take some pictures and stretch our legs. Then we continued onward, as quickly as we could, toward Estes Park, Colorado. When we finally arrived home, about 5 days later, we were exhausted but thrilled with memories we would have. I still have the pictures we took on that trip. Someday I will scan them and share with you the younger version of my friends and me.