The first trip I have any memory of was a cruise around Alaska. I was very young at the time. I remember sticking my hand in an aquarium reaching for a starfish.
The next trip I have memories of my mother and I spent two months minimalist backpacking through Cambodia. My mother was big into the temples so we went to historic temples all over Cambodia. I love just traveling and seeing the culture. About three weeks into that trip we were on a remote island in the middle of the Mekong River this island was small enough that there were no cars just bikes and dirt bikes we rented a bike for the day.
At the time I was still young enough that I could ride on the back of my mom’s bike, but there wasn’t a second seat, there was a little book basket; so long story short, I sat down, we started going and suddenly my foot got sucked into the wheel. It took a nice slab off and cut to my Achilles tendon. I must have let off one hell of a scream because the next second an old Cambodian rice worker who spoke no English ran out and gave us a ride to the ferry boat off the island. Sometime in the next two days, we found the best hospital in the area which was an old, completely bombed-out hospital with about five beds and 300 people squatting in the dust outside. Thank god for tourist privilege, they ushered us in, in 15 or so minutes; remember bombed out and just concrete walls. Working there, were three Korean traveling doctors who also didn’t speak English, they gave me a shot of something in the butt cheek with a reusable syringe and took a picture with me. I really had trouble backpacking after that. We had planned to spend a week in the jungle riding and camping with elephants but I couldn’t risk getting my ankle in the water. We ended up riding them for a full day, one of the most memorable days of my life, an amazing experience. Once my ankle was healed we went back to the lady who helped us on the island, spent a day, and thanked her.
The next trip I remember, we went to stay with one of my mother’s friends in Washington to explore that part of Washington for a little while then we rented a car and camped around the entire Olympic Peninsula for a month through Washington and Oregon. My favorite part was probably kayaking on the Puget Sound and picking huckleberries. The next trip that I remember we went to Arkansas and mine for crystals. We were joined by some childhood friends of mine who moved up to that area after we were done mining crystals. We drove down to New Orleans. That’s where my mother is from. On that trip, I got a gator head that still hangs on my wall.
Then for a few summers, I visited my grandparents in California, not for adventures but for quality time with the family. Two summers ago my mother and I went backpacking through a Peru backpack and took small plans. We hiked the Incan Trail into Machu Picchu. We went to various other temples around the sacred valley then we went up to Lake Titicaca. We stayed on an island in the middle of Lake Titicaca on the border of Bolivia. We stayed one night there but the altitude was crippling at 17,000 feet or so. We talked about getting an emergency boat off that island and then a plane up to the Peruvian Amazon for the last part of our Peru trip where it was nice and wet and low altitude. We took a small canoe with three guys, not that deep into the Amazon for a week. It was an amazing experience.
This last summer with an organization called NOLS and nine other kids my age, I hiked 60 miles through the Olympic National Park Which was truly a trip of a lifetime; hiking outdoors in such a remote environment with amazing people, viewing amazing wildlife. This summer I’ll be going on a trip with the same organization. I will be hiking 50 miles on the coast of Alaska and sea kayaking 150 miles through offshore icebergs. It should be an amazing trip, and it’s coming up in 80 or so days.
