When most people think of college spring break, they think of a lot of booze, partying, and probably a beach. I never experienced this type of spring break, and in all reality, just as soon would not. With it being the time of the year where college students take their trips, I figured I’d share what two friends and I did during our junior year for our spring break.

In quite typical fashion, one of my friends and I were waiting to the last minute to figure out what to do for spring break. We were looking at how much time it would take to drive to a few different places from Lawrence, KS. Finally, we decided we would go to the Grand Canyon. We asked another friend to join, and were ready to leave the next weekend. In the meantime, we decided we would go to an Oklahoma City Thunder game; this would turn into one of many events on a whirlwind of a vacation.

We left Lawrence and headed for Salina where we met my dad for lunch at Cozy Inn (a phenomenal place to get sliders and which I really recommend as long as you’re okay with smelling like onions for the foreseeable future). Hays, KS was up next to go watch some March Madness. This left us with the unfortunate timing of arriving in Amarillo, TX at our hotel after midnight.

The next morning we got up and went downstairs for breakfast. I assume most people have been to a hotel with a waffle maker; and this hotel had one. So I put in my batter, closed, and turned it. I sat back down to talk about the next leg of our journey. As I was sitting there, my waffle was almost finished when a man walked up to the waffle maker…and STOLE MY WAFFLE! We were so dumbfounded that the three of us sat there as this monster put butter and syrup on MY WAFFLE! I couldn’t believe the audacity of this guy. A public service announcement needs to be released for this maniac!

One remade (and closely guarded) waffle later, and we were off on our next leg of the journey. This was about a ten hour drive to just outside of the Grand Canyon to be ready to hike the next day. We woke up early the next morning to ensure that we would have time to make it to Plateau Point and back on the Bright Angel Trail in one day (something they STRONGLY discourage). This hike would be 12 miles round trip and would be an elevation drop (and unfortunate climb back up) of 3,000 ft up to over a mile of elevation at the trail head.

Let’s just say that hiking canyons is not good for out of shape people like me: the easy part comes first. The nice thing about climbing mountains is that if you get tired, you just turn around and it’s easy on the way down. We practically jogged down to Plateau Point in only a few hours, but after sometime enjoying the Colorado River, the issue is that it was all uphill from there. I did it. I made it back up, but it was only through pure determination and the worry of having to sleep in the canyon. My two friends, being in much better shape, jetted it back up and probably could have hiked it again.

After conquering the Grand Canyon, the next decision was to catch a spring training game with my uncle who happened to be down near Phoenix to catch some games. The three of us drove down to Peoria, AZ to meet him and a good friend at the game. It was a blast (though crazy hot). After the game ended, we grabbed a bite to eat and started the loooong drive back to OKC.

As we had discussed, one of my friends drove while I stayed up to make sure he didn’t fall asleep, while our other friend was able to sleep. We stopped at about 2 a.m. to get a little sleep before the remainder of our drive. We made it to OKC in time for us to watch a great game between the Thunder and Celtics. After the game, we stayed in OKC for the night and headed back to Kansas City to pick up a friend from the airport.

The trip was amazing! We listened to music the whole way there and back, and I have such great memories from the whole thing. This shows that there are so many more things to do than just go get drunk on a beach. So make sure you enjoy Spring Break how you want to, even if that includes a 2,900 mile trek in less than a week.