One of the things that I quickly learned after I got out of college and entered the professional world is that spring break doesn’t really mean anything anymore. It really came as a shock to me. I guess I was expecting the same rules of the universe that applied in school to apply in real life. I mean, why wouldn’t every business or agency shut down for a week to allow their employees to go spend time at a beach or ski resort?
Since it is spring break right now and I will be spending my days sitting through legal depositions and looking at utility rates and debt service payments, I thought I would reflect on some of my favorite spring break memories so that I can relive the glory days of freedom and low responsibility. I thought about trying to rank these in some kind of countdown, but I don’t know that I can put them in any kind of order since they all have some kind of special meaning.
1995 - I went to Breckenridge, Colorado with my parents. We piled in the family mini-van and made the long trip. My sister flew into Denver and then met us there. We had a really neat condo for the week. I remember listening to a lot of Pearl Jam, Van Halen and playing my guitar for hours on end. I took my effects pedal and plugged my headphones into it so that I could rock out without keeping everyone up. This was also the first time that I ever tried snowboarding. Breckenridge was an awesome place and somewhere I really would like to go again. It had a really cool vibe with good restaurants, ice cream parlors cafes, and record stores.
1996 - I went with a group of friends from high school to Taos, New Mexico on a ski trip. At dinner one night, I sat between two pillars of art that had a price tag of 2 or 3 thousand bucks a piece. Anytime I would move my chair during the meal, the pillars would sway; I wonder how I would have paid for that? One of the attendees was the Romanian foreign exchange student – I think that she had beaten up every one of the guys by the time the trip was over. She was really mean!
1997 –We went to Red River this year. I had a girlfriend, but there was another girl that I was trying to date. I was really encouraging the other girl to go but to make a long story short – my girlfriend and the other girl went both went. Strange week J
1998 – This was kind of a last minute decision by my best pal and me to load up and drive to Colorado and stay with my cousin. No one really had plans that year, but we felt we needed to do something since it was our senior year. Like many of the adventures that he and I shared, the road trip was the best part of the trip. We listened to a ton of AC/DC and the Refreshments and drove all night to get there. He had a blue Chevrolet step side pickup and we would take that thing everywhere. I don’t know how, but that regular cab truck could comfortably seat six.
1999 – Ah, my first college spring break! I was a college freshman and fraternity pledge at this point. My big brother in the fraternity organized a group trip to Panama City Beach, Florida. There were about 25 that went and we all crowded into one house. I secured myself a nice area in the back bedroom with just enough space between four other guys to layout my sleeping bag and keep a watch on my suitcase. 21 of us packed into an 18 person passenger van and took off for the 20 hour drive with a luggage trailer in tow. This trip was the first time that I ever went to a club and it didn’t take me long to realize that clubs are not the place for me. I hate to dance, I am not tall, and I don’t like paying cover charges. A small group of us found other things to do for the week. On the strip, there was a shaved ice stand located right next to one of those slingshot reverse bungee jump rides. We had a pretty sweet deal going – we made friends with the ride operator, so when there was no one on the ride, he would let us ride it over and over to garner interest from the passersby. I think we rode that thing at least 15 times that night. As the week started drawing to an end, we started to dread the ride back in the van from hell. Fortunately, we met some girls from Muskogee who had driven their car from Oklahoma and we convinced them to give us a ride back to avoid the van.
2000 – I learned my lesson from the year before with van, so this year I was insistent on taking my own car. This year, the trip was to South Padre Island. It was another trip where there were many more people than there were comfortable accommodations. We reserved a block of rooms at a hotel, but it still meant about five or six people per room. I was on a strict budget this week. Unfortunately, my first stop was at a surf shop and a cool white surfboard caught my eye. I ended up spending 90% of my money on the first day buying that board. The good thing was that it kept me out f trouble as I spent all day every day surfing rather than causing mischief, but the bad thing was that I was afraid I was going to starve. Fortunately, we were just a few miles away from Matamoros, Mexico and we found a place called Bigatones where we went and ate every night. We were able to feast on fajitas for about five dollars per night. It was a great week – the crisp feeling of the water in the early morning surf was great!
2001 – This was my first spring break with Rachel, and it was an epic one. It really seems like it was three trips in one. We started off the week by driving to Durango, Colorado to stay the night because I was going ice climbing in Ouray the next morning. Ouray has a really cool ice park and it was a beautiful experience. After a day of climbing, we went to my cousin’s house near Wolf Creek and went skiing. It was Rachel’s first time to ski and she had a few temper tantrums after getting stuck in snow drifts before she really got the hang of it. After a few days of skiing, we came back to Oklahoma, stayed one night, then re-packed and went to Austin. This was really the first time I got to experience Austin. My favorite memory of the Austin portion of the trip was seeing Junior Brown at a free concert in the park.
2002 – This was a big family trip to Florida. We started off the trip at Disney World and then went to Coco Beach. The house on the beach was awesome. My sister has always had access to remarkable vacation housing because of her Air Force career. If I had to rank spring break experiences, this one would probably be at the top. We really had an amazing time. We surfed, played in the ocean, ate lots of great food and spent quality time with family. I think this was the last trip that we went on where almost everyone was there. One of the most significant events in my life took place on this trip as it was when I asked Rachel to marry me.
I had been planning the event for months. I had discretely bought the ring and I had secretly asked both her Dad and Mom for her hand in marriage. Rachel had no idea that I was going to pop the question, so the whole thing was a big secret. Fortunately, I had my parents to help conspire with me with regard to how we were going to sneak the ring through airport security and all that good stuff. My original plan was to set up something elaborate on the beach and ask her there but I quickly figured out that the beach at night would not be the ideal setting for her. Rachel was deathly afraid of the little crabs that ran around and wouldn’t relax a bit. I improvised and came up with a new plan that I hoped would seal the deal.
At Disney World, I noticed that she was really excited about all the princess stuff and she was really fascinated with the throne in Cinderella’s castle. I again enlisted the help of my mom to help me. She went and made arrangements with the Cinderella’s Castle staff so that Rachel and I might have the room where the throne was located alone for a few minutes. At the time, Rachel was also collecting snow globes. I found a snow globe with the Castle in it and bought it before we got to the restaurant. I put the plan in action as soon as we were finished with dinner. Rachel went to the rest room and when she came back, everyone had cleared out of the room. I told her that I had arranged for her to be able to sit in the throne, which she did. When she sat down I got the snow globe out and gave it to her. She was appreciative and said something like ‘ah, you didn’t have to do that.” Then I nervously (more like scared out of my mind) said something like “I wanted to get it for you because you are my princess and I always want you to remember where you were when I asked you to be my queen.” I then got down on my knee, pulled out the ring and ask her to marry me. It seemed like an uncomfortably long time before she finally said yes, but fortunately, she did say yes. As soon as I got her answer and gave her a kiss, I heard a commotion behind me. Turns out the entire staff of the Castle and my family had been eavesdropping and peaking around the corner. Thank goodness I didn’t know that I had an audience, or I would have been really afraid.
So that’s pretty much it! It was hard to top that last one, so I haven’t had a spring break adventure ever since. I assume that spring break will mean something once again if I ever have a kid, but until then, it will just be the week that half of my staff is out of the office. Who knows, maybe I can talk Rachel into reliving the memories later this week. We could sit around the house in our swimming suits and eat Mexican food or something!
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