Sometimes, the best part of taking a trip is coming home. If you are not returning home, then the trip is called “moving.” Some people still live in the same house they lived in when they were born. I have moved nineteen times in my life, lived in seven cities, but each place I lived, I called “home.” This is the story about my first trip away from home without my parents.

My first trip by myself (no parents) was to Disneyland from Sacramento.

It was the end of August, 1971. I had been washing dishes all summer and had some money put away to buy a Pioneer stereo system, but instead, Dave Presnall (future roommate) and I decided to go to Disneyland. We had a friend from church named Dennis who moved to southern California, so we asked him if we could stay with him. Dennis decided to hang out with us during our time in southern California.

This was also my first time flying on an airliner – first time to buy a ticket, first time to go through security, first time to buckle a seatbelt (There were no seatbelts in cars.) Howard Hughes had a passenger aircraft company called Hughes Air West. We booked an early morning flight to John Wayne Airport (It was called Orange County Airport in 1971.) The flight was exciting – free soft drinks, free peanuts, being above the clouds, stewardesses (that’s what they were called back then) in mini-skirts. Dennis picked us up, and we drove straight to Disneyland. All worked perfectly. We parked, rode the tram, and stood at the gate waiting for “The Happiest Place on Earth” to open at 10:00 A.M.

A long time ago, you had to buy tickets for the rides. The rides were classified “A-E”. The E-ticket rides were all the coolest ones and the dull rides were the A’s. You usually came home with a lot of A-tickets. We bought two books of tickets. We rode all day, ate at the BBQ place in Frontierland, saw the whole park twice, and rode the new ride, Space Mountain, several times. In the summer, Disneyland closed at midnight. We were the last riders on Space Mountain – and even got to go one more time without using a ticket. We were the last people out of the gate. We got to our car about 1:00 in the morning.

From there we drove to a 24-hour Denny’s for breakfast. This is the first time I had steak and eggs in a restaurant. Then, we drove to Dennis’s house and slept for about four hours.

Around 7:00 A.M. we got up, had some cereal, and drove to the beach. I think it was Seal Beach or something close. There were oil derricks on the beach. We hung out at the beach, swam in the ocean, talked to some girls, and had hot dogs for lunch. After lunch, Dennis had to go to work, so Dave and I headed to the airport.

We had decided to fly stand-by on the way back to Sacramento. Flying stand-by was cheaper than buying a reserved seat ticket. You signed up on a waiting list, and if there were empty seats, you got them. If there were no seats, you were out of luck and had to wait for the next flight. All flights directly to Sacramento were full, so we decided to take our chances on finding a flight to San Francisco and then on to Sacramento. We flew from John Wayne to San Francisco, but in  S.F., it took us about four hours before we got another stand-by flight. While I was there, I bought a loaf of sourdough bread to take home. I still love San Francisco sourdough bread.

I landed in Sacramento around midnight. My dad picked me up and brought me home. So, my first trip anywhere without my parents lasted only about thirty-nine hours, but I packed all the fun I could into every single minute.

(Pictured: Me, age 18, Dave Presnall)