Arizona Vacation, 1989

In 1989, my cousin Angélique and I were penpals.  We met when we were five and in the summer of 1989, she was 12 and I was still eleven.  We decided I should visit Tucson, Arizona where she lived with her parents Barry and Cynthia, and younger sister, Lee.

My uncle Barry wrote my dad Tom a lengthy letter.  If I came to Arizona alone, my uncle said it would be best I joined the girl scouts and attend a summer camp with Angélique that year.  I didn't want to join girl scouts.  The other option was my uncle would pick me up in Westminster, California, and would also drive me back, but my parents would have to pay for the expenses.  Or, I could fly, but would still need to leave for the girl scouts.  He also knew of my motion sickness problem and told my dad options on feeling better: ginger pills, ginger snaps, and ginger ale.

My dad said if he drove me, then we could leave if we wanted, I wouldn't have to join girl scouts, and all expenses would be my dad's own.  We decided my dad would drive me to Arizona and he could see his brother and I could visit with my cousins.

When we got to their home, which was about a 7 hour drive, in my dad's non-air-consitioned Jeep, they were just getting ready to leave to the Filipino-American club my aunt was a member of.  There would be many different Filipino foods to try, shows such as Filipino dancing and pageant for Miss Teen Filipino-American.

We stayed in Tucson for about a week, which fell during my cousin Lee's 7th birthday.  My dad bought her a bicycle for her birthday.

WeMy cousin Angélique my father to take us for frozen yogurt, and he thought that sounded absolutely disgusting.  My father did not eat yogurt because the thought of live culture bacteria disgusted him.  Growing up, I was always told to try food just one time, because you can't say it's disgusting if you've never had it before.  My cousin told him that, and he didn't want to be a hypocrite, so he tasted frozen yogurt for the first time and he enjoyed it.

Other things we did was attend the Desert Museum where we saw animals and plants and the Gaslight Theater where we saw skits.  We went to see a movie, though the name of the movie slips my mind.

When we left Tucson, my dad and I went to Sedona, Arizona where we stayed at a Best Western hotel.  We drove a little ways to Jerome, Arizona, a small mining ghost town with a home open as a museum.

The following day, we went to the Grand Canyon for a few hours, had breakfast there, and he bought me souvenir rocks to take home.  It was the only vacation my father and I ever had.