Category: Travel

Parenting, Teenage road trip, Travel

Teenage Road Trip

Mona Alvarado Frazier

My youngest son announces he wants to take a road trip up to San Francisco (360 miles away) with two friends. His car, he’s driving, the others are pitching in for the gas. College starts in two weeks and he hasn’t done much over the summer but sleep, skate, and hang out.

“Oh, yeah?” I say. “Where are you staying?” (he has a gas card and $30 left from his June HS graduation)
“We’re sleeping in the car, taking the sleeping bags.” (in a small SUV? He’s 6 ft. tall)
“Where are you parking?”
“In someone’s neighborhood I guess.” (uh, no). “Sam’s Club parking lots?” (no SC in Frisco). “At a campground?” (Muir woods is 2 hrs. away).
“Hostels run about $25 a night.” I say.
“Are you kidding, didn’t you see that movie “Hostel?” (uh, no again).
“Do you know how to change a flat tire or use jumper cables in case something happens with the car?” I ask.
“I’ll youtube it if I need to know.” (uh, right-youtube).
“How you gonna eat on $30 for 3 or 4 days?” (I’ve seen him eat).
“I’m vegan remember, pita chips, hummus, juice, fruit.” (Okay I guess he can buy a lot of that for cheap).”You don’t want me to go, huh?” he says.
“I want you to think about it first. Give me a plan I’m comfortable with and then it’s fine.”

Now I don’t want to be a downer, but I don’t want him rousted by SF police for sleeping in his car. And I don’t want to give him money for a hotel-you know SF prices?! And then I remember my first road trip, when I was twenty, to San Diego and Tijuana with three girlfriends. It was so long ago I can’t remember where we slept, but I still remember the guys we met in SD, Carnitas Urupan in TJ, and having to go to the secondary inspection area at the border crossing.

How can I deny him a road trip experience? Adventure and exploring is part of a young man’s makeup. It was part of my own experience. But then I envision him skateboarding down Lombard St. or sleeping on the side of the road or his car messing up and there’s no youtube connection.

I remind myself that I’m a concerned parent, I’m not hovering over a just turned 19 year old. I don’t know how this will turn out but he just may ask his father for some ways to earn money at his house, or his grandma’s, or sell video games. And that’s fine. Where there’s a will there’s a way is my firm belief.

We’ll see what develops in the next few days. I’m already feeling melancholy.

LACMA, Staycations, Tim Burton exhibit, Travel

First Stay-cation

Mona Alvarado Frazier

Last week I put out the concept of “staycations” to the kids (well, they’re really teens). If you read that post then you know how that went over. A few boundaries were added to the definition of a staycation after that scene. And I have veto power too. So we’ll see how we do over the summer.

Our first staycation was to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to see the new Tim Burton exhibit. I’ll cut to the chase, it was a great presentation. The only down side was we couldn’t take photos inside. So we resigned ourselves to only take pictures of the outside stuff.

The inside area was crowded, too many articles bunched together in that small space. It was better once we went into the next room. Once inside the larger section I felt like snatching the large camera this girl took out of her suitcase of a purse. She actually diverted a museum ‘guard’ so she could take a photo of  Edward Scissorhands- the full costume sans Johnny Dep. She did this three times before getting busted, but they didn’t throw her out…too bad, I was ready to do a fist pump in the air and say “YEAH.”

My favorite things were the storyboards with a video following the scenes. Storyboards of all his movies were on display. There’s also a blacklight room which is kinda creepy when you open the curtains, but then kind of cool. The entire visit was about an hour and I could have stayed another 20 minutes since I love to read everything posted adjacent to the art. Both kids loved the exhibit and we waved goodbye to the TB men.The last day of the exhibit is on Halloween-imagine the fun on that day.

 Before heading to the other three sections of the museum: Ahmanson, Art of the Americas, and Japanese exhibits we headed across the street to have lunch. There were six rolling food trucks to pick from and I think we hit on the best, especially if you are vegan or vegetarian. The father and son duo who worked the truck-Veg It Up! had some great R & B music coming from their truck and they were parked in the shade, so the decision was easy. Great sweet potato fries and mint julep iced tea here too.

 After a great lunch we headed back to see the Pablo Picasso’s and the one Monet I could find. The “Elizabeth Taylor in Iran” was good, but all too short. That was another couple of hours. Then we hit the art room and the big kids took off to draw and paint. There were more teens and adults in there than young children.

We left close to four o’clock and bypassed the clogged 405 and hit PCH 1. It was clear sailing for miles. Now anyone who has driven through Santa Monica and Malibu know that this can be a staycation of its own. A cloudless aqua sky lay above the horizon of blue gray ocean for miles and miles. I had to agree with the kids, this was a pretty good first staycation. We look forward to the next.