This winter day why don’t we open the storage chests of our best memories. Let’s rifle through our stories and give ourselves permission to relive an unforgettable trip or a favorite book. Or dig out the photo albums and let the pictures come to life. It will be a mini-vacation for us.

My story is about four young women in a tiny car…

It was while Judi, Barb, and I worked at Warm Beach Camp the summer of 1970 that we met a vivacious, joyful woman from Eureka, California who invited us to come stay with her and her husband later in the summer. That, and the invitation to Steve and Sue’s wedding in San Diego County was all the encouragement we needed to plan a California road trip. Joyce, a friend with a car, completed our traveling group.

Joyce pulled into our driveway that first morning with a luggage carrier on the top of her car. We stowed our stuff in every available space but there was no room for Barb’s guitar. She had to trade it for my sister’s ukulele. Here we were, four young women crammed into a VW bug with all our stuff. Barb, cross-legged, faced out the back window, strumming the ukulele.

We must have been a sight! We certainly had plenty of attention from truckers.

Along the way we experienced the Redwoods, basked in the gracious hospitality of friends in both northern and southern California, played at Disneyland, reunited with college friends, feared for our lives in a Tijuana taxi, and sang our hearts out. Looking back, I wonder that I had any money left for school tuition.

This wasn’t my first big adventure—I’d already been to central Oregon, Wyoming, and Alberta with school or church groups. But this was the first time I’d been with peers who made our own decisions. We paid for the gas, we decided where to stop and eat, it was up to us to figure out how to get along in such close proximity.

And we did just fine.

What a grand adventure for four young women in a tiny car.

So did you find a memory to spend a bit of time with today? Do you want to share it with us in the comments?

Ginger