Every year, my family takes a month long summer vacation. I am an only child, so it is just my mother, my father, and myself. My first big trip was to Vancouver, Canada, when I was five years old. Because we drove, it took five days to get there. Twelve hours each day in the car, is not the perfect environment for a five year old. When we reached the Canadian border, the border patrol officer asked for my passport. My parents' faces turned white with anxiety. The officers escorted us inside to be interrogated. I was taken away from my parents and questioned. They asked me how I knew the people I was with, and who they were. Due to my young age, I did not know how to correctly answer the question. A more appropriate answer would have appeased the officer, and freed my parents. I answered the question honestly, but not in the best way possible. I responded confidently, "The woman is Liz, and the man is Dale." This did not help our case, but after several more hours of interrogation, they let us cross the border. We rented an apartment in downtown Vancouver for four weeks. Every afternoon I rode my bike around Stanley Park, feeling meritorious because I had finally ditched my training wheels. During the second week, I caught chicken pox and fever which lasted for the rest of the trip. I was grateful for the return home and the end of my sickness.

On the next trip, I was six years old and our destination was the East Coast. We rented a cabin in Cashiers, North Carolina, for a week, and then we headed up to New York City for a week. After we visited the city, we went up to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, and then we came back home.

My first of many big trips out west, was when I was seven. It took four days to reach Sacramento, where we spent a couple of days exploring the city. We took the sickening mountain roads to our final destination, McKinleyville. This is the cute little coastal town, where we rented a house on the ocean. We spent two weeks in Mckinleyville, frequenting Patrick's Point State Park, walking down the beach, and visiting Fern Canyon. We also went a few miles south, to the little college town of Arcata. Arcata is the last bastion of hippiedom, whose residents include the students of Humbolt University, and nonconformists still stuck in the psychedelic days of the 1960's. After our two week stay in McKinleyville, we started to head south to our next destination. I was so excited to be heading to Sonoma, to see my uncle. We took the coastal road, stopping in towns along the way. We reached my uncle's house, in about five hours. His house is situated between two vineyards, overlooking the Russian River. We stayed at his house for about three days, before going to his other house in San Francisco. The drive from Sonoma to San Francisco was very picturesque. My favorite two stops along the way, included Monterey and Sausalito. We stayed at my uncle's house in the city for two days before heading home.

We went to California again when I was eight. We enjoyed our trip last summer so much, that we decided to repeat it. We stayed in all of our favorite hotels and pretty much did everything that we had done the previous summer.

Deciding to go somewhere new, we chose to visitColorado, when I was nine. We stayed in Breckinridge, Colorado, for about a week and a half. I kept getting sick while I was there, due to the change in altitude. By the time I had finally acclimated to the altitude, we were getting ready to leave. We drove to Chicago after staying for a couple of days in Boulder, Colorado. We spent five days in Chicago, shopping and going around to different museums. We left Chicago, and it took us three days to get home.

The next two summers, when I was ten and eleven, we went back to Northern California. We walked on the beach, took bike rides along the Hammond Trail, and hiked up to the cliffs and bluffs to watch the waves crash over the rocks. We went back to Sonoma and San Francisco, to see my uncle and aunt. Leaving San Francisco, and heading home, was bittersweet. I missed my friends back home, but I also wanted to stay.

When I was twelve, we went back to Canada. Our first stop was Glacier, Montana. It took four days of excruciating driving to get there. It was hot, sticky, and mosquito ridden. Glacier was just like Louisiana, except with huge snow-capped mountains. I did not like it very much, and was grateful when we left and started driving to our next destination. When we reached the Canadian border, we presented our passports, having learned from our mistakes last time. We spent a week in Banff, where the temperature never exceeded sixty degrees. We then went to Jasper, a town situated in the Canadian Rockies. It snowed most of the time while we were there. My dad and I went on a whitewater rafting trip, one of the days that we were there. It was extremely exhilarating because we went on the expert rapids. I insisted that we sit in the very front to get the full experience. After we left Jasper, we went to Lake Louise. The water in the lake was a teal blue because of the mineral deposits in the melted glacial water. We spent three days in Lake Louise before driving home.

When I was thirteen, we went to North Carolina and spent a week in a cabin. The cabin was on Lake Glennville, a couple of miles away from Cashiers. We spent the week hiking in the Appalachian Mountains and swimming in the lake. We also rented a boat for the duration of the stay and drove it around the lake. After the week was up, we went home, having experienced the shortest summer vacation we had ever taken.

My family traveled back to California, when I was fourteen. The trip that we took for the fifth time, surprisingly never got old. The majesty of the red wood trees and the seemingly endless expanse of the Pacific Ocean still captivated my attention. I also never got tired of going to Sonoma and San Francisco.

This year we traveled to the Pacific Northwest. The first stop we made was in Idaho, where we stayed with family and visited Bannack state park, an authentic old ghost town from the 1800's. After our stay in Idaho, I took the wheel and drove into Seattle. We stayed in Seattle for two days, shopping and enjoying the city. The next night we stayed in the architecturally historic coastal town of Port Townsend, Washington. The next day, we moved on to Forks. In Forks, I kept seeing Twilight related paraphernalia. Everywhere I looked I could not escape the Twilight madness. I had no clue why the entire town was obsessed with the saga by Stephanie Myers. It took me two days to figure out, that this was where the books were set, and the movies were filmed. After we left Forks, we stopped in a few other towns along the way to Victoria. We took the ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria. Victoria is the beautiful capitol of British Columbia, situated on one of the islands.We stayed in an apartment in downtown Victoria for a week. After Victoria, we went down to California, where we revisited our favorite places and then traveled down to Sonoma and San Francisco. It was one of my favorite trips we have taken so far, and I can't wait to return to the many beautiful places I have been to.