What was Your First Big Vacation on Your Own (or w friends) and not...

[mnhtnbb]

5. Flew to Cabo San Lucas

With my fiance, his roommate, and girlfriend in a little 4 seat plane from Santa Monica that the roommate was piloting. This was 1972 when Cabo was barely more than a fishing village. My first realization that the roommate/pilot was inexperienced was when he asked us to help look for the landing strip in Cabo that was the airport. I spotted it before he did and his explanation that he'd been flying around looking for it was that he had the map in his lap folded wrong!
While we were there went out on a fishing boat. Coming back we encountered a school of hammerhead sharks that were swimming very near the surface. Freaked me out to see so many of them right alongside the boat.
On our return flight, we stopped on the Mexico side of the border for fuel. I came very close to phoning my father to ask him to come get me (he lived north of San Diego) because the pilot's flying skills---or lack of them scared me. I didn't. When we took off, we all had to convince him to gain more altitude before flying over the mountains along the border. Damn good thing we did, because I watched the altimeter drop 500 ft when we hit a downdraft and if he hadn't agreed to gain more altitude over the mountains, we would have been splatted all over the mountains. It was that close.
I later told this story to my tennis instructor who had been a pilot in WW II and he said if the guy lives through getting 1000 hours flying time, it might be safe to fly with him again, but otherwise don't go up with him again!
I did marry my fiance, which was also a mistake, and we divorced after seven years together. My next husband turned out to have a general aviation license and there are some stories to tell from flying with him over the 32 years of our marriage. But that's for another post!