I Went to Spring Break as a Grown Ass Woman

A young white male in a tank top approached another young white male in a tank top. "My fuckin' nigga!" he exclaimed, embracing him—but not too much, lest the act be perceived as homoerotic. I looked around to see if anyone else was suitably horrified by this exchange; no one was.

I was in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, for the final week of spring break, a month-long celebration of beer-soaked debauchery that, according to the city's visitors bureau, brings 30,000 college students each year to the man-made lake's littered shores. The weather had been windy, overcast, and cold, creating an environment more befitting to the end of days than partying. Yet still, in spite of it all, they partied. There is a lit that never goes out, fam.

Earlier in the day, a smattering of frat brothers and sorority sisters, a mere fraction of 30,000, stood on the sand surrounding the Nautical Beachfront Resort—epicenter of SWATopia, the "West Coast's Largest Spring Break Event." Hovering around folding tables, the sun above intermittently emerging and disappearing behind dark, foreboding clouds, they played beer pong while an apathetic DJ blasted Fergie's "London Bridge." (The original London Bridge was disassembled and transported to Lake Havasu City in 1971 at a cost of $7 million; it is the city's pride and joy.)

Exposed to the elements, going hard for days, the toll this endless party takes on their (young, sure, but still fallible) bodies seemed intense. When you look into the eyes of the average attendee, drunk at 1 PM on a weekday, you see nothing, only yourself staring back.

When the sun went down, SWATopia's Rockstar Stage was set for a concert by a DJ who goes by the name 3LAU. But he had postponed his appearance until the next night because, according to the venue's bouncer, he "thought it might rain or some garbage." I was not disappointed by this development, as I know nothing of 3LAU's oeuvre, but the bouncer nevertheless offered me a $10 refund for the inconvenience of having to listen to the beats of a replacement DJ. He also offered me a bit of advice: Next time, bring a can of Rockstar Energy Drink and get in for half price. "It's gotta be full though," he warned me. "Not empty."

Rockstar Energy Drink logos were everywhere, as were representatives of the brand, throwing beach balls and trucker caps into the sparse crowd. This collection of drunken Cal State Fullerton and Cal State Long Beach students, it seemed, was their target demo.

At 9 PM, the concert's scheduled start time, there was virtually no one at the event. I wandered around the Nautical's perimeter and looked into the open doors of hotel rooms, filled with bikini-clad girls and board-shorted boys. Mountains of discarded red Solo cups and beer cans lay ignored on the sparse grass outside.

The spring breakers' rooms were filled with the same detritus. Walking past, you could see their temporary owners sitting on beds, yelling about nothing in particular, while listening to the same EDM music that blared from the stage mere paces away. They were here to celebrate a weekend devoid of noise constraints, devoid of RAs breathing down their necks. A weekend without rules; a weekend without adults. But the adults, like the ambulances, are always a stone's throw away, there if necessary—Lake Havasu City also acts as a tourist destination for middle-aged water sports enthusiasts, who share the space with spaced-out youths.

In my meandering, I came across a green-haired girl who told me this was the smallest crowd the event had seen in years. She had spent her spring break here for the past three years and told me this year, only 25 of the hundreds of Cal State Fullerton students who normally attend came. None of the Las Vegas crew—students from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas—could make it, as their spring break this year didn't coincide with the dates.

Even with less of a crowd, she said, it's still fun, as "less people means less drama." I asked her where, at 10 PM, everyone was. "They're still waking up," she told me. No one would leave their rooms until at least 11, so she suggested I find some people to pre-game with, as outside alcoholic drinks weren't allowed in the concert area.

I chose, instead, to go to the concert area. Sipping from a lukewarm can of sugar-free Rockstar, I surveyed the bleak scene before me, watching smoke machines billowing out into the nothing that surrounded them. "It's like a really sad middle school dance," my companion remarked while gazing at the 30 or so attendees standing awkwardly in groups. A kid in a Hawaiian shirt to our left took a pill, chasing it with a swig of bottled water.

As time passed, more spring breakers trickled in, but the crowd never grew to more than a few hundred. A remix of Ludacris's "Move Bitch (Get Out the Way)" got everyone hyped, but the hype quickly waned. A friend of the DJ shot copious iPhone footage of him, smartly refraining from shooting the sparse crowd he was spinning for. I watched as a man leaned back on a platform and fingered his lady, the smoke circling them making it appear as though they were in a war zone, and thanked God I, in a literal sense, am too old for this shit.

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