Last summer, my cousins decided to call us up and take us on a road trip. “ROAD TRIP!” we shouted as we began packing up our things. Our uncle told us that he had a time share at a place called Indio, and that it might be a little bit hot. Our family and our cousin’s family are extremely close. Our moms have daily conversations, which can sometimes last for up to 2 hours when there is a juicy gossip to be spread! I’m just kidding!
My uncle rented a huge 15 seat van for our two families. I remember thinking, “Wow! We’re going to have lots of space!”… but then we found out about the third family going: my auntie Rita and her son Patrick.
â–º QUARTER FINALIST 2012 TEEN TRAVEL WRITING SCHOLARSHIP
Patrick is a pretty big guy. He is at least 6’1” and weighs around 210 pounds. This got the van packed! The van arrived and to tell you the truth, it was a bit scary. It was big, rectangular, and white. It looked like the type of car that guys kidnapped girls in during the movies. Nevertheless, we all shuffled in and tried to get cozy.
We left around 6 o’clock in the morning and I was still groggy from my sleep, so I wasn’t afraid of suffering from a minor case of insomnia on the ride. I thought I would be able to sit tight and fall asleep. This was not the case. I don’t think I was able to sleep a wink during the whole 13 hour car ride. 13 HOURS! It probably would have been less, but my cousin Patrick has a problem where he gets obsessed with things. At the time his obsession was Slush Puppies, a type of slushy. So when we stopped for our bathroom break at a gas station, he saw that they were selling Slush Puppies and begged his mom for one. He slurped it up when we started back on our trek. 25 minutes later was our next bathroom break. Right before he got out of the van for the break he told me that he had a bladder problem, and he intended to drink no more liquids for the remainder of the trip. Guess what… he walks back to the van with another slush puppy in his hands. I couldn’t believe it.
By this point we were getting more towards southern California, and it was getting scorching hot in the van. We stopped for maybe 2 more breaks because of Patrick, and had to suffer excruciating pain as we sat and waited in the rolling hell that we were strapped into by our “safety” seat belts. Finally, a dreadful 3 hours later, we made it to Indio. We spent the rest of the day in our air-conditioned rooms, and slowly but surely, the thought of the outside became a fantasy. We woke up the next day thinking that it wouldn’t be so hot because it was so early. I grabbed the door handle, turned it, pushed, and was hit by a wall of dry air. If absolute zero was the absence of heat, then this was negative absolute zero, the absence of cool! We compared this feeling to walking out of a NASA base on Mars, and walking over to the clubhouse was like walking without space gear to the mother ship. For some odd reason, my brothers and I tried to play basketball… our shoes melted. We found out later that it was 120 degrees. Always do your research on a place before going there. It helps.
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