Every year it seems that I’m always away during the week of July 4th with family festivities, despite our mutual discontent with the state of our country. In this way we celebrate the fact that all of us have a week without usual responsibilities (work and other crap) (I’m always free so that doesn’t pertain to me), rather our zeal to enjoy the flawed history of America. We packed our bags, got an oil change for our car, and headed on an eight and a half hour journey from SoCal to Lake Tahoe (not accounting for the many stops along the way, acting on the demanding bathroom needs of my other family members).

I usually find road trips very peaceful, and accompanied with a certain feeling of nostalgia while driving past irrelevant cities and rolling hills. These long periods in the car give me a certain sense of mind that I can’t just shake off, and allows for time to contemplate future events and past decisions. The best drives are always at night when you just see the lights of buildings and the flashing colors of cars. I also think music sounds better at night, even songs that I generally don’t listen to.

We set out from our house early on Saturday morning, in the darkness of our sleeping neighborhood. If there is one thing my family isn’t, it’s quite, so naturally just getting into our car probably sucked for our neighbors who had to endure our unnecessary loudness. I brought my phone, headphones and a journal as my entertainment for the long drive and sat in the backseat behind my dad. In the past few years sleeping in the car hasn’t even been an option for me anymore, although my family always claims that when I close my eyes I am actually in the midst of a deep sleep. However, little do they know I’m literally contemplating everything and daydreaming about all the things I wished would happen.

Usually about half way through the drive I’ll recognize the fact that my playlist has repeated ((which sucks since car rides really bring out my intolerance for repetition of anything (when we take the wrong exit, eat at the same fast food place, have my ears pop with reoccurring violence, yada yada yada)) , and that’s when I know it’s time to harass my family members. I start off with a witty comment, followed by my mom commenting on how it was a “good one.” Then my dad will pitch in with one eye still squeezed shut, as he attempts to grasp onto any chance of falling back to sleep. My brother will then hate on whatever he said, and that will provoke a wondrous conversation between the four of us. The drive to Tahoe was quite a bit different though, since there were many stops along the way that made me once again appreciate the fact that I live in California. It never looks like one thing, and that’s why California will always be so California. I really appreciated this specifically during our drive, after our family acted on my brother’s constant fixation on the detour from the 395 onto the 120.

My brother was convinced before the start of the trip that Tioga Pass was the first thing worth stopping for. All I’m gonna say is that it was actually the fifth stop, but it was well worth the detour. The path took us through the backcountry of Yosemite, and it was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. We paused frequently at every viewpoint, overlooking a beautiful clear lake with surrounding mountains and thick vegetation. I think what really made that moment special was when all of a sudden rain began pouring, and flashes of lightning could be seen.

My brother always bickers at me for rating views on my infamous scale of 1-10, based not only on the view itself, but on every other aspect that occurred simultaneously (the weather, my level of hunger, whether my dad was commenting or not, etc). But as silly as it is, my scale has never failed me. These high expectations have landed me some of the most beautiful moments. I guess I should clarify “landed,” as my scale only conveys how I feel about something, but through it I have successfully dictated a 9 in my lifetime which will never be forgotten (but that will be saved for another time).

Anyways, about Tioga Pass. Stepping out of the car was absolutely magical. I could see through the body of water, as it reflected snowy peaks of the European-like mountains. The air was so crisp that I advise every single pita chip company take notes on how to reach such perfection. I truly was in awe of everything I was seeing, but it hadn’t been overwhelming in any way, just the perfect level of amazement and comfortability. I also appreciated how there were few people: a handful of Asians stepping out of their tour bus, a photographer allowing the picture to do all the capturing, and my family (who had learned to mimic the silence everyone else seemed to mutually adhere to). In the middle of the captivating lake rose a a large rock, on which six ducks stood in line ready to march straight off the platform into the lake. They can swim. I’m not fantasizing about drowning animals.

When we had gone far enough into the highway, curving into the mountains and climbing with elevation, we turned back. That’s when things in our car got particularly heated. The rain I mentioned got worse quickly, which although I thoroughly enjoyed, also had somewhat of an impact on our family as our cordiality soon turned to animosity. My mom and dad were now sitting in the backseat, and my brother had been driving. Although he has had his license for many years now, my mom always makes a point to grip onto the handle above the backseat window. She’ll make sounds like “sssss” and “ooo” every time there is a bump in the road, which cannot in any way be avoided on a one lane pass through the mountain. My dad just kind of sits there in the back going on and on about every little thing my brother was doing wrong. Naturally my dad’s driving couldn’t have been “more safe,” so this was all just a bunch of bull to listen to in the car. What particularly set off my parents this time were the falling boulders from the mountain, as rain continued to gush down pouring on the road. Prior to entering the mountain we had our air conditioning blasting through the sweltering heat of the desert, and now the weather couldn’t have been anything like what was previously experienced. Just so you can envision what exactly was happening, I’m going to put in all into perspective: A family of four was driving downhill on a two way, one lane highway down the winding road in the mountain, with rain and hail pouring down and fallen rocks on the road. My mom was making snake sounds, gripping the handle unreasonably tight, and my dad was bickering about the speed that my brother was driving with. I was chilling in the front (obviously) controlling the music.

Needless to say, we survived the mountain pass, and as soon as we got to the bottom, the rain just cleared out completely. We got to Tahoe, spent three nights there (I’ll write about the hikes and stuff later) and then drove home. Our drive back was one of the longest periods of time I had ever been in a car. The whole journey took 11 hours, and it was sort of traumatizing. I couldn’t even get in a car for two days after our trip, scared that my mom would turn into this evil witch and force me to drive all the way back. Of course it was a fun little vacation, but the drive was awful.

My dad, brother and mom sort of ganged up against me along the way back. I told them I had no interest in seeing this so-called “June Lake,” and they all one by one convinced each other it would be equivalent to the beauty of Tahoe. I wasn’t just being an unjustifiable party pooper or anything, but by the time the detour from our highway came to June Lake my stomach was not having it, as it just was affected by the severely winding road down the mountain from Tahoe. In my mind I had already seen the most gorgeous lake, so this one was both unneeded and just inherently hurtful. But again, my voice was overpowered by the three firm decisions of my family members, so I gripped my stomach and we took the detour.

At this time my brother was driving, so my parents resumed their same position as in Tioga Pass. In addition, I decided to take a stance and so every time there was even a minor turn in the road I over-exaggerated myself yelling “slow down” and then an “ahh” to symbolize my body aching. I said the words “slow down” so often that my brother pulled off the road and directed a family intervention. He said there was too much talking in the car so we were to use the abbreviation terms he gave us: SD-slow down SU-shut up MN-mom no DN-dad no FU—-(he never actually gave this one, I sort of just used it). And the rest of our way to June Lake was all of us yelling abbreviations to him, with many DNs, SDs, and FUs. We got so sick of each other by the end of this trip, but the abbreviations were set in stone for the future. I would just like to add that June Lake was a dump compared to Tahoe (sorry if you live there, but Tahoe set too high of expectations for everything else), and so I was awarded salt and vinegar chips for my valiant effort to prevent the detour. My family also listened to me the rest of the way home, when it came to stops and drifting off road….that is until we were in the middle of nowhere and my dad was convinced that the San Andreas fault could be seen from this mountain pass.

Just as my brother was in love with Tioga Pass, my dad was bounded to this idea of seeing the San Andreas fault. I wasn’t too educated on this, as in I had no idea where it was, but all I knew was that the desert made people insane. We were driving at around 6:00 now (with still 5 hours left until home), and all of a sudden my brother and I pop out of sleep and scrolling through our playlist to see enormous sand mountains to our sides. My parents were rather calm about everything, but in my mind I was like where the hell were we. And then I saw it. The repeated foreshadowing of a tragedy to happen. My dad was smiling this smirk, and I knew then that we wouldn’t be home for another ten hours. I politely (subjective, I probably shouted it) asked my dad where we were, and he said we were taking a little detour to see the fault line.

Immediately I sort of just lost it. I had this huge panic attack, for no real reason I guess, I think I was just tired of being in the car for so long and the thought of another three hour detour made me sick. I forced him to pull over to the side of the abandoned road, and I got out of it. This time my mom and brother backed me up and came out as well, leaving my dad in the car who just continued driving, convinced the fault line was coming up. Now there were three, out of place and shabby looking, people off to the side of the road sitting on the red sand that went on for miles and miles. There were these huge tree things, that appeared to  be cacti on steroids. The sand mountains engulfed us, and the whole scene was too overwhelming for me to look at. I began crying for my dad to come back so that we could just go home, and my brother was just making jokes about it all, earnestly trying to cheer me up. Fifteen minutes later my dad came back. We all silently got in, and left that godforsaken place. Our family also took an oath that there would be no more stops, and I’ll give them that, since we then had a nonstop five hours back home. Overall I think I’ll remember this drive fondly, since only our family could make abbreviations and detours and offensive comments without actually having a genuine hatred for each other.