<p>Again - thanks for all your support. Sometimes I have a hard time because I grew up with no limits. Took me a long time and a lot of heartache to learn how to set my own. </p>
<p>Anyway, the punchline to this whole story is that the mom of the friend who was driving ended up saying no. She really DID have veto power since she owns the car.</p>
<p>I was on my own in Europe at 17 and had been traveling alone back and forth to Africa since I was 16. I met a couple of dirty old men on my travels, but except once hitchhiking, never got myself in a scary situation.</p>
<p>*Sometimes I have a hard time because I grew up with no limits. Took me a long time and a lot of heartache to learn how to set my own. *</p>
<p>Because my parents were not good swimmers I was taught to be afraid of the water and was expected to learn to swim in a lake that came up to my waist.</p>
<p>Parents not adventurous in the least, although after my father died when I was 17, and I moved out, my mother basically turned the " head" of the household over to my brother, who was about 15 at the time.
It wasn't surprising that after that upbringing, both my brother and younger sister looked to external structure once they graduated from high school. ( my brother joined the Air Force and my sister joined the Church of Latter-Day Saints)</p>
<p>( I don't take well to authority- so I have been finding my own way ;) )</p>
<p>I would feel a lot more comfortable with a destination that had been researched and chosen for interest, than because thats where everyone else is going.
But it is pretty hard not knowing where they are- even though internets and cell phones make it much, much easier.</p>