Road trips were the highlight of my summers when I was young. It was a ritual I looked forward to in the summer because it meant my family and I would travel to other cities and states. My mother was always responsible for choosing the destination, while my father took care of all the driving. Somehow my father approved of it. Once I knew where we were going, I would have started packing right away even if we had months left. I still don't know why I did it, maybe because of all the excitement I felt. The day before we left, my dad made sure our 2001 Toyota RAV4 was ready. This means he would have checked the oil, tire pressure, coolant, etc. My two main places my family and I traveled to were Los Angeles, California and Florence, Oregon. You might ask "What's so great about Florence?" Well, it wasn't necessarily the scenery but rather the time spent with my loved ones. During the car ride my mom played Elvis Crespo's song “Suavemente” at full volume. I got to the point where I memorized every single word of the song. Now every time I listen to that song it reminds me of my mom and our trips to Florence. There were years when my family would just go for a day and sometimes go camping. We camped in our car even though there were signs saying it was forbidden to camp there, but we did it anyway (don't tell anyone). We walked along the path that led to the lighthouse and watched the sun set, casting an orange haze over the horizon, illuminating the sky. Maya Angelou describes summer perfectly in this sentence “The faded beige of times gone by has been replaced with strong, confident colors” (71). Watching the sunset was a perfect way to end a day. This is mainly due to the fact that my parents filed for divorce around the same time. My sister and I found ourselves right in the middle and couldn't do anything to stop our parents from divorcing. Traveling is still my favorite hobby and will be until the end of time. Expensive, yes, although really exhilarating and you feel really amazed by everything. Since my family stopped traveling years ago, I decided to travel with other family members like my cousin. The most recent trip I took was to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We had fun visiting Dave and Busters (arcade place), Miami zoo, horseback riding, Everglades alligator farm, etc. I plan to travel to Europe soon and continue what was once a ritual in my early years