Have I mentioned that my mom is crazy? I mean that in the most loving way. I wanted my mom to drive cross country when I was 17 and bring 3 of my friends and my cousin with us. So we would have had 4 teenage girls and 1 teenage boy in the car. My mom said okay, so I researched condos on the beach in San Diego, California and found one, my mom paid for it and then rented a minivan to make the trip. She took 3 weeks vacation from work so we could take our time on the trip.
When we left we got stuck in traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike. I had a stuffed monkey, George with me and we were taking turns waving George’s arms and sticking his head out the window and talking to people in cars next to us. The people around of were laughing hysterically. My mom laughed the whole time she was stuck in traffic and thanked us for being so funny. We had breakfast in Georgia and dinner in Florida. After dinner in Florida my mom drove to Texas and got us all Texas burgers at a Whataburger even though it was only about 10 in the morning. We made it into Dallas a little after 6:00, got a hotel room at Hotel Indigo and had dinner at Dallas Chop House. My mom was exhausted so we went back to the hotel and she went to bed but said we could wander around the hotel and the block we were on. My cousin was going to hide behind some bushes and jump out and scare us when we went by, but there was a couple behind the bushes already and they were making out, so embarrassing.
We left Dallas about 11:00 the next morning and decided to go to Arizona to visit my mom’s Aunt Dot and Uncle George; we thought they lived in either Tucson or Phoenix. We had to cross the New Mexico border which was kind of scary because of the guards and that we had never been through a border patrol before. When we were at the rest area around 7:00 the next morning, my mom called and talked to her uncle who informed her they lived in St. Johns, Arizona, about 400 miles back the way we just came. They were actually 17 miles from the New Mexico border.
Aunt Dot and Uncle George took us all out to dinner and we did end up staying overnight with them. They had a camper on their property that they hooked up to electric and water and so we kids stayed there and my mom and her friend stayed in the house. It was pretty cool looking at all the tumbleweed and dried grass. My mom’s aunt and uncle had gone shopping and we had plenty of food to eat and my mom came out when we were in the mobile home talking and started scratching on all of the screened windows and scared us all. I wish we could have spent more time visiting them. We left the next morning around 11 am.
We made it into San Diego at about 2:00 in the morning on Friday, but could not check into the condo until 4:00 in the afternoon, so my mom found a CVS that was open 24 hours and we slept in the parking lot. It was hot so we had the van doors open. There were a lot of inebriated people walking through the parking lot and one of them fell into the van on top of my friend who started screaming. It was a very interesting night/morning. We went to McDonald’s for breakfast at 3:00 in the morning and found a drunken girl was trying to suck air out of the hand dryer.
We finally made it into the condo right on Mission Beach; it was so awesome to see the Pacific Ocean. My mom took us shopping at Trader Joe’s so we would have food in the house. There was a boardwalk and Belmont Park with an arcade along with a roller coaster ride that we could walk to every day. We were in the ocean and thought the Dolphins were Sharks and started freaking out. Mommy took us to SeaWorld twice where my friend was hit in the head with someone’s shoe and my cousin fell over the railing while we were waiting to get on a ride, we also went to Los Angeles a couple of times and went to see the Hollywood sign, Hollywood Boulevard and went to Anaheim to go to Disney Land.
My mom ended up having to go to the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay for a conference with her job right after our condo vacation was done so we stayed there for a few days too. Her co-workers thought she was crazy to drive cross country with all of us, but we all had a blast. Since my mom was working she just had us order room service when we were hungry.
We went to a different CVS before heading back on the road to go home and while we were shopping a man stole a bottle of Grey Goose vodka and when he ran out of the store he shoved my friend out of the way. He was never caught, but I wondered why they had liquor so close to the door.
On the trip home we went to the Grand Canyon and had a blast there as well. My mom stayed back from the canyon, because she doesn’t like heights but she enjoyed the souvenir shop there. My friend tried to throw her grandfather’s ashes into the Grand Canyon and the wind blew them back in her face and into her mouth. My mom pretty much drove straight across the country to get home; she just stopped at a lot of rest areas along the way so she could get some rest. By that time we were all anxious to get home.
My mom told me that this was the most awesome vacation she ever took and thanked me for planning the whole thing. She wants to make the trip again, but without her friend. My mom may be crazy for driving 5 teenagers across country, but she made it so much fun for us. She totally awesome and gives me the respect and confidence to succeed in life in whatever I want to do.
