Vacations: Diary of a Cheapskate

Sigh. I wish everyone would stop bothering me.

I’m trying to plan a vacation.

What, you’re not buying it? You figure the closest anyone as tightfisted as moi would come to taking an actual vacation is a trip to the nearest Barnes & Noble to purchase a copy of Europe on Twenty Dollars a Day?

I’m hurt by how little you know me after all this time. I’d never buy that book.

I’d borrow it from the library.

But seriously, who doesn’t love the idea of a good vacation? Not the low-cost, fun-lite version each of us has been forced to suffer through at some point in our lives. Mine happened during my first year after college. My longtime boyfriend and I were living on opposite sides of the country, and I painstakingly hoarded my vacation days and pennies so I could visit him in glorious San Francisco. After a few days, he announced we’d be motoring down to glittery Los Angeles.

Only instead of taking our time enjoying every craggy beach and breathtaking vista along the dramatic California coastline, we drove straight through flat farmland in the middle of the state for about twelve hours. For all I knew, it could’ve been Kansas, only with less charm and more roadside artichoke stands.

Once we arrived, instead of staying at the Hotel Bel-Air or even the Motel 6 Simi Valley, we camped out. In a pup tent. Without air mattresses beneath our wafer-thin Army surplus sleeping bags— rented!—and with no choice but to turn in at 6 p.m. because that’s when the sun went down and there was no other source of light.

Oh, wait, that’s not entirely accurate. On our last night at the campground, we were awakened by the sound of a huge motor home dropping anchor nearby. Out popped a plump, jolly couple, and in record time, there were steaks sizzling on a Weber Grill. The flames illuminated the large cable dish mounted on the mobile home’s roof. Through a window, I detected the distinctive “whirrr” of a Waring blender whipping up something undoubtedly delicious and sinful to drink.