Spring break memories: From family to Sin City

HANGIN' WITH THE STARS: Penn Jillette, back row center, and Marshall Young, front row right. / Photo courtesy of Marshall Young

By Marshall Young

March 18, 2008 | Spring break is an opportunity for relaxation and escape. Many people plan huge, extravagant trips to Mexico or Israel. I wasn't so fortunate. But in a way, I still created great memories for myself.

The original plan for me was to go to Northern California to visit some interesting sights and sounds. The road trip would have been accentuated, at least from my perspective, by the chance to drive a functioning De Lorean. You know, the car from Back to the Future. It would have been a dream to get the car going 88 miles per hour and see if the flux capacitor transported me to another time.

But I had family responsibilities. They needed me to support them at home for at least a couple of days. My younger brother was leaving on his LDS mission to Lithuania, and our family is so close we all just had to be there to say goodbye.

So instead of traveling time, I got to see a church basketball game. Of course, in classic fashion, there were technical fouls called, and the game was abruptly ended. In my opinion, it was the most calmly "called" game in the history of sports. No one was yelling. I was just confused as to why it all happened. Luckily most officials have thicker skin than that at USU games, or we would never finish a game.

As a family, we all got to go out to eat at Fuddruckers. To some people, this is a normal thing, but for my family, it is a rare occurrence. We almost never go out to eat at a restaurant all together, and it was fun to pose in front of the camera and celebrate the fact that we didn't have to make the food we were eating. When my brother finally left, it was a sad day for our family. I decided that I had to strive to get warm. That wouldn't happen in Utah.

To salvage the rest of Spring break, in the traditional sense, I made a quick trip down to Las Vegas to see a few friends, stopping along the way to visit another friend. Arriving into the "city of sin" at night is a surreal experience seeing all those lights. The contrast from the black nothing I was driving in and the sudden realization that the city was coming up soon was a beautiful sight.

But, I arrived too early for my friends. Both of them were at work when I got there, so I was left to wait for them to get there. I tried walking around the block, and soon discovered that this was a low income area, which suggested all sorts of things to look out for. I felt like I was a target, since I was wearing the coolest shirt I could think of: a Thundercats T-shirt. Little would the unseen criminals know that I only carried $2 in my pocket. I silently laughed to myself as I enjoyed the sounds of the city.

Eventually, I sat down to wait for them to arrive, playing solitaire on my iPod because I wasn't quite ready to play for real at the casinos. Soon they arrived and we had a great time catching up.

My friends Josh and Jay kept me busy the whole time I was there. We got up early in the morning so they could run, and I could observe, the half marathon at Hoover Dam. And we all got together to see a movie, and then eat at Cheesecake Factory inside Caesar's Palace. Josh's cousin Ian couldn't finish his "Tons of fun burger" and I couldn't blame the 14-year-old for that. The hamburger was taller than his head. He'll probably still be eating it throughout this week.

Of course, we had to see a show in Vegas. That's what you do, right? We saw the Penn & Teller show, and I was amazed at how Penn attacked magic in general, and still managed to put a smile on the audience's faces. After that long night, I was exhausted to the point where there wasn't much else to do but sleep.

As much fun as I had that day in Las Vegas, my adventure didn't end there. I still had to make the trek back to Logan. I saw hail, snow, sleet, rain, and car accidents all over the place. Who knew that such a thing could happen on a road trip during Spring break? For a couple miles, I had the most intense 10 mph driving experience of my life. The visibility was so bad I had to exit the freeway any clean off my windshield and continue on.

My last spring break was definitely an adventure, and it goes to show that one can make the fun happen, no matter the circumstances.

MS
MS