When I was in elementary and middle school, my family moved several times – from one state to another, one city to another, one timezone to another. The communities were so vastly different from each other, it often felt like being in a different country with each move. Several years living in Houston and Orlando with summers spent visiting family in the Bronx offered so much international diversity, it never occurred to me that I would ever need to leave the borders of the US.
The opportunity presented itself when I was seventeen and graduating from high school. Knowing my graduating peers would be drinking, smoking and more on the scheduled senior class trip, I decided to pass on it and plan my own event. I booked a cruise to Mexico for interested classmates, my friends from other high schools, and our families – almost 40 people! I set up payment plans for everyone, and my mother helped me open a business bank account. Since I hadn’t turned 18 yet, I wasn’t legally able to open the account alone.
We worked with the cruise travel agent to make deposits on cabins, arrange dinner seating, and plan excursions. The summer of 1988 was my first international trip to Cozumel, Mexico… and the first Althea Retreat!
