Adventures? Tell me yours!

[zestfive]

My dear LJ friends....What have been some of your adventures that you've been on that you have enjoyed? I'm going on adventures but I'm curious about yours. I'm doing this to find myself...I think I've lost me. What are my preferences and what do I want to do? I like what I'm coming up with but I don't even know what's possible.

Comments

[helios137.livejournal.com]

One favorite adventure was one that I went on with my present spouse, Inquisitive-Love some 8 years ago. As friends, we visited Italy, Austria and Germany. The most memorable leg of our tour was when we visited the village in Northern Italy where my 2 Italian grand parents came from. In spite of obstacles such as limited time, not knowing the language and only knowing the name of the village (that was too small to even show up in regional maps), we succeeded in not only finding the Alpine village, but were also welcomed by my 97 year old great aunt, Palamena Valar. If you are on a search to find yourself (and really, that's the most important journey that we all should take), then exploring the lands of your roots is as good as anywhere to start.

[zestfive.livejournal.com]

I've done some exploring of my roots in the US but not all the way back to the "...old country". I do need to get my family history from my Mom, I've got my Dad's stuff. I also went as a teenager with my Mom as she did research on the east coast... I think I'd need to go overseas...

[manintheboat.livejournal.com]

Iceland!
Being attacked by a monkey in Gibraltar!
The lower 9th ward!
The Castro!
Manhattan!
Milan!
(skip England)
Eaten by a starfish on the Olympic Peninsula!

[zestfive.livejournal.com]

nice...

attacked by monkeys and eaten by starfish? you must be tasty!

[manintheboat.livejournal.com]

The monkey didn't bite me :)

[ex-ignusfaa.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed Cuban culture when I went to florida. I want to see Cuba. Or at least bicycle around on an island where there is a lot of cuban culture.
or
I want a meadow full of foxtail grass and the wind blows it around all shiny.

[zestfive.livejournal.com]

nice...lie down in that meadow and just completely zone out!

[ex-ignusfaa.livejournal.com]

my lj friends list is short so I scroll past this a lot. let's go to haiti and do habitat for humanity. Life is .. grey

[zestfive.livejournal.com]

Ok! I think I'd be up for that. :-) My older sis was the ED for H4H in Iowa for 5 years. She went to El Salvador twice to do that.

[mplsindygirl.livejournal.com]

I love to travel. Not that it applies to you, but it certainly was adventurous when I traveled with small kids. 30 day road trip to the west coast when they were 1, 3 and 5. 5 weeks in Europe when they were 4, 6 and 8 and numerous other trips. I love traveling without them or with just one of them. It's a different level of adventure then. Perhaps more sane?

[zestfive.livejournal.com]

Wow...I don't think I knew about that...I didn't do big travel when teh boy was young much mostly because I didn't think it was possible without much money.

Traveling with just him hasn't happened much...

We traveled by train when he was about 8 years old. Glacier National Park, Seattle and then flew home.

Last summer's trip was nice but really quick and perhaps will be our last as I expect he'll be sprouting more wings.

[dreamsrundeep.livejournal.com]

Ooh! I love this idea. Are you looking for huge world-wide ideas?

* Visited the Taj Mahal (fabulous!)
* A cathedral tour in Paris
* Snorkeling with lemon sharks in bora bora
* Driving across country stopping at amusement parks :)

I have a bucket list board on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/dreamsrundeep/bucket-list/

[zestfive.livejournal.com]

I'm looking for any and all ideas! Thanks for the pinterest link...I'm scanning it. FUN ideas.

Of course, I'm sad that there is no way that I'll likely ever be married to someone for 50 years in this lifetime. Oh well...nothing I can do about it now.

[ncalrod.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this qualifies as an adventure but I once visited the Mayan city of Chichen Itza. While there I climbed a pyramid, visited the ritual ball court, stood above the Sacred Cenote ("Well of Sacrifice"), and went inside the El Caracol observatory. I would love to go back some day and visit again and perhaps visit some of the other Mayan ruins.

[zestfive.livejournal.com]

Hmm...international travel, I could do it but I think I need to travel locally alone first. I'm not quite ready for that yet.

And yes, I think it does qualify as an adventure!

[ncalrod.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know where exactly in the country you are located but I have also found spelunking to be great deal of fun. It's infeasible on the east coast due to the outbreak of White Nose Syndrome among bats meaning they are under voluntary quarantine to prevent any further spread of the illness to other uninfected colonies since they are fairly sure spelunkers are spreading it when they go caving. If you are somewhere else or willing to drive somewhere else there are caves all over North America. I would of course not advise you go spelunking on your own as that is about as safe as ice skating on a partly frozen lake in April.

Barring that there is always hiking/backpacking or if you don't want to commit that much time there is always Urban Exploration and/or Urban Spelunking (exploring man made tunnels, drains and access shafts). One of my favorite forms of Urban Exploration is find places that are hidden in place sight in a town or small city and explore those places. People get so used to navigating via vehicle they stop thinking like pedestrians particularly if the area has roads ect. The human mind has a tenancy to gloss over "irrelevant" information so our mental maps of the world we live in are surprisingly inaccurate as we tend to retain only that information you use on a regular basis. There are places that you might drive by for years and never notice there is a clear trail there until you walk by it on foot. The trail in turn could lead to a patch of woods that your mind had edited out of your mental map of the area. Places like that are what I call forgotten places or places hiding in plain sight. There are some interesting things in places like that.

[zestfive.livejournal.com]

Yeah...lots of these adventures I'm likely to undertake solo so I don't think the caving is a good idea for me. :-) I've always loved the idea of urban exploration (or abandon property exploration) but I tend to be a rule follower so I don't take that risk very often.

I do like those hidden places...geocaching has helped me find some of them.

[ncalrod.livejournal.com]

I've always been rather allergic to rules and authority in general ever since I was a small child. I can't help it, in my case it's literally just how I'm wired mentally. Someone tells me I can't do something and it makes me want to do it even if I had no interest before.

When I see a sign that says No Trespassing I usually interpret that as "Interesting stuff here - Proceed at your own risk". The only time I tend to observe no trespassing signs is when its too much trouble to not obey them such as when a barbwire fence is concerned. That's not to say barbwire has ever stopped me if I wanted to get by it. There have been a few times that I judged that satisfying my curiosity was worth the effort. When it comes to urban exploration it helps to have a world view that has no problem with disregarding the law when you see fit. Not a requirement of course but it does help. :-)

There are a good number of other things that are legal that are exciting and worth doing that I could suggest but I don't know a whole lot about your personal world views so some of it might not apply. For instance one of the highlights of my year is a Midsummer Festival I attend every year. I take time off from work and I'm gone for three days and I get back and recover on the fourth day. It's a pagan oriented event but everyone is welcome regardless of faith or lack there of. Spiritual aspects aside its a 3 day long camping trip with all kinds of work shops and a large party/drum circle around a bonfire every night. There is mead, live music, dance, drums, vendors selling all kinds of stuff, workshops on all sorts of things and its really just a good time where everyone feels like an giant extended family for a few days. I look forward to it every year.

http://www.shenandoahmidsummer.com/

[zestfive.livejournal.com]

While I'm a rule follower when it comes to that, I'm also one that likes to buck the system. Perhaps it might be more descriptive if I say that I'm cautious.

Your festival sounds wonderful...Sadly it's a little far away, like 1200+ miles away! I'd love to have a teleporter. I want to be able to get places in a blink of an eye..this would save me time and allow for all sorts of adventures!

I think going to a rainbow gathering would be cool too.

[guihong.livejournal.com]

My father used to take my brothers up to the Quetico Park along the border of Canada and Minnesota when they were boys. A plane took them and their stuff way out into the wilderness, and they canoed (sp?) back for several days, maybe a week. That might not be your cup of tea ;) but it's pretty close to you!

As for me, teaching in China or anywhere qualifies as an adventure. I've always been more interested in traveling overseas than domestically, though.

[zestfive.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I went camping as a kid with my family to the BWCA. I loved it all except the leeches! I hate leeches! I'm not sure I'd be up for doing that alone but perhaps I need to explore some of the outdoor women's adventure groups.