Growing up I was the designated family "adventure leader". I remember this title being applied when we went on weekend family camping trips in Palo Duro Canyon and I always wanted to explore "over there" or try climbing "that wall" despite the fact that I was 6 or 7 at the time and the biggest thing that made me an adventurer was that I believed it about myself.
That spirit of adventure and challenge never really left me. I think it exists in everyone. Everyone has that one thing that seems to them like if they could do that they would really have made it. That place they want to go. That goal they want to achieve.
I think I realize now that the value of that spirit of challenge and adventure lies in expanding what you believe about yourself. What you believe you can do. That you see yourself as someone who is doing everything that they want to do. You can do that wherever you are. You can do that living your whole life within the same 20 mile radius. But you have to live it for you. In high school I thought I would have made it in life if I was happily married, doing well in school, happy with what I was learning and doing on a daily basis and had traveled out of the country, maybe even to Europe. Now all of that is true a year and a half later. I did a humanitarian program in Peru with my older sister Alana the summer after I graduated from high school (June 11-August 11, 2015), and this past spring I studied abroad in Spain through BYU, and took advantage of some friends and a couple weeks before the program started to travel to Ireland and England (April 21-June 17, 2016).
Sunrise over the Andes at Machu Picchu
Water balloon fight with the kids in our after school program for my birthday,
Eagle Condor Humanitarian Service, Cajamarca Peru.
Huanchaco Bay, Trujillo, Peru.
Blarney Castle, Ireland.
Tower Bridge, London
And the House of Parliament with Big Ben.
La Mesquita de Cordoba, Spain.
And it's not because I'm so cool. It's all still a miracle to me. I'm starting to think that it's mostly just because when the opportunities came, I accepted them and showed up. But they have expanded my view and changed my perspective so much already. It has made me more grateful for America but has left pieces of my heart outside the US at the same time. The experiences I have had have expanded my mind and my heart, and have helped me prove to myself that I can do whatever I want to do and can go wherever I want to go if I prioritize it and put my mind to it in my life.
Goofing around at lunch.
That one day we went to France during an excursion from Spain and couldn't communicate with anybody but a lady from the Dominican Republic in a chocolate store.
Not all adventures are important. Life has a fun way of more or less completely changing your perspective every 2 years or so. But this was one big perspective change that happened to me. I felt like I had to make it in life. That I had to get straight A's in high school and college. I had to be the first and the best. The most experienced, the most daring, the most adventurous, even the most humble (because that goal makes so much sense). But the greatest adventures in life, I think now, aren't the end goals, but the little things along the way that make memories, no matter what stage of life or where you are.
Like buying the whole shelf of 99 cent shaving cream for your graduation party and then discovering what it feels like to wash it out of your hair.
Or climbing on top of an ancient ruin in Peru when you're in the middle of the mountains and you're not going to hurt it. Featuring my flea-bitten legs.
Like it raining when you're exploring a park in London.
Or a bird pooping on your bag when shopping in Barcelona.
Or fitting... that many people in a car when going to church in these clothes while camping with grandpa at the Fort Bridger Rendezvous over a weekend in college.
Adventures don't have to be travelling to new countries. They can be walking down new trails, or taking new classes, or going new places or doing new activities (whether you are good at it or not) or eating new foods or meeting new people, or having new experiences with people you've already met.
Calamari sandwich!
Sleeping on the roof (:
Walking a trail with my sisters in law (and that other guy) over Christmas bre.
A Chinese Lantern Festival that turned out to be a lit-up zoo...
You can find whatever adventures you want, that no matter their complexity or simplicity or if you have to change your views and your plans a few times, expand your world a little and what you believe about yourself. Sometimes adventures come of their own accord in the form of new situations that are hard and require you to grow and sacrifice. But guess what? If you're growing, you're making it. And then you can find a new adventure.
Like these kids in Pulyucana, Peru who spent the afternoon sliding down this cement incline on water bottles. I guess they knew all of this all along.
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