{"id":178,"date":"2014-10-24T16:27:31","date_gmt":"2014-10-24T16:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/?p=178"},"modified":"2014-10-28T19:24:19","modified_gmt":"2014-10-28T19:24:19","slug":"train-across-the-midwest-the-beginning-of-an-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/train-across-the-midwest-the-beginning-of-an-adventure\/","title":{"rendered":"Train Across the Midwest &#8211; the beginning of an adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/D597Hq5tUmI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Your sound turned down?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sometimes you have to do something crazy.<\/p>\n<p>1400 Miles.<\/p>\n<p>6 States: Utah \u2013 Colorado \u2013 Kansas \u2013 Nebraska \u2013 Iowa \u2013 Illinois.<\/p>\n<p>Why do people go on adventures? Since cavemen could stand on two legs, they have been wandering into each others\u2019 caves.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes our journeys have a practical purpose. Other times we go where the wind takes us. In either case, we grow through these wanderings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot all those who wander are lost.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2015 J.R.R. Tolkien, <i>The Fellowship of the Ring<\/i><\/p>\n<p>My journey began at 1:00 AM in Logan, Utah. I made my way to Salt Lake City and caught the 3:30 AM train headed to Chicago. I went over the river and through the woods\u2014up the mountain down the valley through canyons and cornfields\u2014snaking my way across the Midwest.<\/p>\n<p>Utah \u2013 Colorado \u2013 Kansas \u2013 Nebraska \u2013 Iowa \u2013 Illinois.<\/p>\n<p>36 hours. 6 states. 1400 Miles.<\/p>\n<p>The sunrise woke me up at 6:00 AM. The colors blossomed over the fall canyon walls: blooming roses shed from a fiery pollen core.<\/p>\n<p>My seat pal behind me, Launa (traveling from Seattle to Boston), kept giving me treats and snacks.<\/p>\n<p>I marveled at the beauty of the springs of Colorado and was humbled by my first view of the vast plains of Nebraska and Kansas. Miles and miles of cornfield as far as the eye could see.<\/p>\n<p>I found myself thinking through the long ride, \u201cWhy do people go new places?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Is it to meet new people? Is it to see things we have never seen before?<\/p>\n<p>Maybe\u2026but I think it is so<strong> we can learn more about ourselves.<\/strong> When we are away from the comfort of home, we sense our true character, without our family, friends, or peers to influence us.<\/p>\n<p>When we are away, we become stronger as we face challenges and learn to overcome them.<\/p>\n<p>We learn to trust others, as we knowingly put our lives into their hands.<\/p>\n<p>We learn to trust our instinct as we turn onto paths we\u2019ve never before walked.<\/p>\n<p>We break routine and we shatter established patterns of thought.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTravel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one&#8217;s lifetime.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2015 Mark Twain, <i>Mark Twain: The Innocents Abroad\/Roughing It<\/i><\/p>\n<p>My journey is just beginning. This adventure has brought me to Chicago. I\u2019m here to learn. I\u2019m here to grow.<\/p>\n<p>Where will you go on your next adventure? <strong>Who will you be when you come back?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Your sound turned down? Sometimes you have to do something crazy. 1400 Miles. 6 States: Utah \u2013 Colorado \u2013 Kansas \u2013 Nebraska \u2013 Iowa \u2013 Illinois. Why do people go on adventures? Since cavemen could stand on two legs, they have been wandering into each others\u2019 caves. Sometimes our journeys have a practical purpose. Other [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,17],"tags":[28,32,31,29,30],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199,"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions\/199"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tophcarter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}