‘They’ll Unlock This at the Register’: My Sister’s Trip to California
It’s rare that Sheila and I allow anyone else into our inner circle. Not for lack of trying, it just doesn’t usually happen. So since I’ve moved into my van, it’s mainly been a one-woman show. But this past week, that all changed. So who could possibly have been so lucky? Was it a guy? Jerry, maybe? Oh no. Nothing has changed there. But my automotive version of a house guest was much, much better than that. My sister came to visit.
My sister and I are extremely close. It’s just the two of us, and although we weren’t always the best of friends growing up, as she has gotten older I have watched her become an incredibly strong, outgoing, kind, and unique woman who isn’t the least bit afraid to be herself, and who I couldn’t be more proud of. I haven’t changed much, she just tolerates me better now. But here’s the thing about my sister and I.. as completely amazing as we both are (I can feel the eye-rolling), we are also both weirdos. And we both find each other’s “weirdness” hilarious. So from the moment I picked her up at the airport in Fresno, California it was a series of disastrously hilarious events.
Now, I wanted to make sure my sister got the full van life experience in her short 8-day stay. And when you think of van life, what other place comes to mind as easily as a good-old-fashioned Walmart parking lot? So yes.. my sister’s first night in California, not just this vacation, but ever, we slept in the van in the back of a Walmart parking lot, under a spotlight, next to a broken-down trailer with the loudest generator I have ever heard, which was more than likely the headquarters for some type of low-budget drug ring. What can I say, I know how to show people a good time.
The next morning, after making oatmeal out of my JetBoil, brushing our teeth with a jug of water and spitting into one of the planters normally used to make the parking lot look a little “homier,” we made necessary runs to Walmart and Grocery Outlet for supplies. One thing you might not know about California is that most of the Walmarts keep certain items locked up. Now you’re probably envisioning the more expensive watches and jewelry, maybe some of the nicer electronics, things that most places would normally lock in glass cases anyway. Not that strange, right? Wrong. We hadn’t come to Walmart in search of matching watches. What we wanted, and what we stood outside a glass case looking at in total disbelief… was a package of face wipes. Yes, 2-dollar, Walmart-brand, make-up-removing, face wipes. Now why would Walmart keep their face wipes under lock and key? I have absolutely no idea. But after a couple minutes of laughing and looking around nervously wondering what to do, we finally found a sales associate- who proceeded to unlock the case, take the wipes out, and place them into a locked plastic box. He then handed the box to my sister, and said “they’ll unlock this at the register for you.”
We couldn’t do anything but hold the box and laugh. This happens every time someone needs to buy a bottle of face wash or a tube of chapstick? When grandma goes into Walmart with her curly blue hair and her walker, looking for her regular bottle of overnight face cream, she gets handed that bottle in a secure plastic box to take to the register? Watch out for grandma, you never know what she’s been slipping into that big huge purse. We gathered the rest of our items (instant rice, tuna, and two jugs of water) and headed to the register with plastic case in hand. But apparently the associate who locked the plastic box had also regarded my sister as the “klepto” type, because he had sealed that box so tightly that the girl at the register couldn’t get it open. After calling in reinforcements, we finally left Walmart with our 2-dollar face wipes, holding them in the same way that I imagine Tom Brady would hold one of his super bowl trophies- since the amount of effort to get them had been about the same.
From there, we headed to Mammoth Lakes, California, to get a taste of the side of van life that feels more like camping than homelessness. We camped for a night on some BLM land just outside of town, and the next day we packed up our backpacks and started hiking towards Duck Lake, planning on a one-night camping trip- me with my giant 60-liter backpack full of our food, the tent, and my personal gear- and my sister with her tiny day-pack, the world’s smallest sleeping bag dangling from the outside. And it was beautiful. Duck Lake is an incredibly gorgeous place, and on that night we were the only ones camping at the lake as far as the eye could see. But this lake is at about 10,000 ft above sea level- so at night, it gets cold.
But my keen survival skills told me that we would be fine. So when my sister asked if she needed more than a 50-degree sleeping bag, I assured her that that wasn’t necessary. I’d camped in much colder weather, and the forecast looked good. But after a sleepless night sharing one sleeping bag, since she had given up on hers, shivering, and of course listening in terror for imaginary bears, it began to occur to me that my survival skills might not be quite as keen as I thought. Like I’ve said in previous entries, the mountains will humble you like nothing else- especially when you are a 5’3” girl who still knows virtually nothing about camping but sometimes likes to pretend she’s Bear Grills. But as we sat outside the tiny one-person tent the next morning, still in our sleeping bags, trying to keep them away from the flame of the JetBoil while making coffee, talking to each other in British accents, and looking out over one of the most beautiful views I have ever woken up to, I was reminded why I’ve fallen in love with moments like that one, and I couldn’t have been more thankful to be able to share the best part of my world with my best friend in the world (aside from Sheila, of course).
After hiking out that morning, singing loudly and yelling at each other in weird accents the entire time, we spent one more night in Mammoth, went out to dinner, I got stung by a bee (it wasn’t the bee’s fault.. I accidentally sat on him), and we then ran into the van and hid from bees for the rest of the night. I woke up the next morning to what I can only describe as a murder scene, the result of my sister’s midnight nose bleed, which somehow ended up on the floor, walls, ceiling- not even my shower curtain was spared. I’m looking at the evidence as we speak. So after doing our best to clean up the crime scene that was once my van, we headed west and south- to Santa Cruz.
As you know, I’ve been to Santa Cruz before- and while I would much rather be hiding in the woods by myself with absolutely no civilization in sight, I knew from the moment I saw this city that my sister would love it. And since her one request was that she see the Golden Gate Bridge, Santa Cruz was a good jumping-off point. So after bracing myself for human contact by running through a few of my go-to conversation-starters- “Hey, how are ya?” “Lovely weather we’re having” “What is your favorite color?” “How do you feel about cats?”- I felt much more confident as we pulled into my old stomping grounds (a creepy back-road with lots of broken-down campers, that would later be cleared out by the police).
Santa Cruz and San Francisco were both more fun than I ever thought they could be. We bought skateboards in Santa Cruz and rode them up and down the sidewalk, shopped, went to dinner, walked on the boardwalk, watched the surfers from the beach, and almost got tattoos (nothing out of the ordinary for me, but it would have been my sister’s first- but when the tattoo shop was closed we took that as a sign and bought hats instead). We woke up early on the last day to see the sunrise over the Golden Gate Bridge, drove the hour to San Francisco, didn’t see the sunrise at all because of fog and clouds (in fact we almost couldn’t see the bridge itself- something I still feel terrible about, because once again I somehow decided that I was a natural born meteorologist and without even checking the weather just declared that we should wake up at the ass-crack of dawn to see the sunrise over the bridge), walked around the city for a few hours, and then, sadly, it was time to drive back to Fresno.
Waking up on the last morning, next to our favorite meth lab/camper, neither of us wanted the vacation to end. But while I was sad to be driving to the airport, I was, and still am, so incredibly thankful to have spent the week with my best friend (sorry Sheila). There are times in your life to be independent, times to be grown-up, times to put yourself out there and meet new people, be cool and exciting and brave.. but there are also times in your life when you just need your best friend, or you need your family. And I am so fortunate that I have both in the same person.
But now that that sappy moment is over, Sheila and I are off the keep screwing up- in the great state of Colorado. And boy are we going to have some stories to tell..
“A sister is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost.” -Marion C. Garretty
