What is Adventure?
ad·ven·ture. /noun
By: Meredith Miller
Published June 12, 2018
~ The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page ~
You know how people always say that they want “make this summer the best summer ever” and they plan all this crazy stuff, but when the summer ends they realize they maybe went biking once or twice and didn’t do anything earth-shattering like they said they wanted to?
That used to be me – before I met my best friend – Randy. What I’ve gathered is that you can plan to do all this stuff, but if you don’t have the right somebody to share the experiences with, it’s hard to get that stuff done.
What is adventure anyways?
Is it like how Eleanor Roosevelt described life’s purpose – doing something every day that scares you; that is out of your comfort zone?
How do I classify something as an adventure? In my unprofessional opinion, an adventure is anything that’s out of your comfort zone, something you’ve never done before or made time for before. That being said, it didn’t take long after meeting Randy before we had our first adventure – segwaying in Chicago!
We made a day of it – Randy, me, and my younger brother, Patrick. After segwaying, we all wanted to go up to the top of the Sears (yes, SEARS – not Willis) Tower, so we parked in a parking garage and walked to the front of the Tower. However, the line was INSANE, and since we are all relatively impatient people and hate lines, we decided to do the John Hancock Building 360 degree experience* instead.
Anyways – John Hancock! I’ve never been that high in a building in Chicago before – so that view was awesome. Then we ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory at the bottom of the building – not something I’d say was an “adventure” – per se – but I decided to recap this day for you all, and in the name of thoroughness, I shall mention that detail.
(* – the name is cooler than what I thought a “360 degree experience” was. In my head, I was picturing a floor that kind of has a rotating platform all around the four sides. In reality, you just walk around the building and there are windows…)
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.
Since then, the adventures haven’t stopped coming. We’ve been together for three years (and counting) and have been to 35/50 states so far. From filming on I-80 from Iowa to New Jersey, seeing the Northeast in the autumn, to hiking the Grand Canyon, to driving to San Diego from Chicago through the plains, deserts and mountains, then north to Washington and experiencing the traditional Northwestern fog and rain, to closer to home places like Wisconsin and Michigan, ATV-ing in Indiana, etc. Travel is something that we are incredibly passionate about (which explains America’s Road Trip and the Best of the Interstate).
The moral of this blog – what I had started with the intention of, and now the attempt to piece it all together anyways – is that it really helps to
be with someone who craves adventures just as much as you do.
When there’s someone special to see the world with, you can’t wait to start new adventures.
And that, in and of itself, is the best adventure someone could ask for.
Thanks for reading, and feel free to leave any travel stories or how you met your travel buddy in the comment section below. If you’re interested in learning about some amazing places in the United States to visit this summer with your travel buddy, check out Amanda Harding’s blog on 15 Natural Wonders here. As always, Happy Travels!
