Happy Thanksgiving from the Adventure Awaits Blog!
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope your day is filled with family, friends & delicious food.
Here’s a video from Kid President to get you in the right mindset—a thankful one!
Additionally, come Black Friday, encourage you to go on an outdoor adventure instead of joining the fray and going shopping. Check out the new #OptOutside campaign launched by the outdoor equipment company, REI. Instead of staying open for the insanity on Friday, all REI stores will be closed and their employees will get a paid day off. I think that’s pretty awesome and I am definitely planning on joining the celebration and opting to go outside!
Grand Valley Book Club – Halloween 5K: Friday, October 30 // 8:00pm // GVSU Clock Tower
The Grand Valley Book Club is no ordinary book club. The vibrant group has created a variety of unique activities and events that defy all expectations one may have for a club dedicated to literature and reading. They attend book-based movie premiers, volunteer at retirement homes and elementary reading programs, and coordinate travel opportunities, such as their upcoming trip to New York City to meet notable author Alexandra Bracken. One of their most beloved traditions is Potter and Pancakes, an event co-hosted by the Grand Valley Quidditch Team that involves watching Harry Potter movies and eating free breakfast food. When I discovered that the Book Club was organizing a Halloween 5K run, I knew it would be the perfect opportunity to get involved and experience what the Book Club is all about.
On October 30th, festive and costume-clad Book Club members gathered around the Grand Valley Allendale campus clock tower for the special event. In addition to the 5K run, a costume contest was also a part of that night’s festivities. To set the proper tone, jack-o-lanterns that the club had carved at their previous meetings decorated the starting line and check-in tables.
For the amount of people there (approximately 20 to 30), the number of those who actually ran was quite small: including myself, there were only seven runners. However, the lack of runners did not translate to a lack of energy or enthusiasm at the event. Remarkably, the majority of the Book Club attended the event to support and encourage the runners by cheering on the sidelines, directing traffic and handing out water. Additionally, nearly everyone was dressed in creative costumes, adding to the Halloween spirit of the night.
Sulan, an active Book Club member for over two years who was dressed as Rosie the Riveter, explained that her favorite part of the event was simply “seeing everyone in their Halloween costumes.” This sentiment illustrates how versatile the event was: even those who don’t like running enjoyed being there.
“Book Club is like a family,” April, the club’s president, explained. “We try to create a variety of events that give Book Club members opportunities to grow closer and become better friends.” Making connections and building relationships has always been the vision behind Book Club, which was started by April and her roommates during their freshmen year a little over three years ago.
It was apparent that the Book Club members were close-knit and comfortable, but they were also very welcoming of new members. I felt as if I was adopted into the group without hesitation when they celebrated my successful completion of the race. Race finishers and costume contest winners were awarded bags of apples, bagels and, of course, books!
After the run, many of the event participants carried the decorative pumpkins to Little Mac Bridge. In an act that was part clean-up, part stress relief, and entirely fun, each person took turns tossing their pumpkins over the bridge. The pumpkin smashing was a fantastic way to conclude the evening.
The Halloween 5K was fun-filled and high energy, demonstrating that the Grand Valley Book Club certainly knows how to celebrate. I can’t wait to see what they have planned for the future.
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Check out the Grand Valley Book Club on Facebook and Twitter!
Once again, I would like to keep things interesting with a post that deviates from the standard travel stories. Today I am going to discuss my teenage filming/video-editing hobby.
When I was a sophomore in high school, I took a video production class. We aired a school-wide broadcast every week, so I had the opportunity to create commercials and play the parts of a news anchor or producer. We also had a variety of side projects that challenged us to create music videos, video interviews and even a 25 minute short film.
I absolutely loved this class, so much so that once it was over, I bought my own camera and began creating goofy videos with my friends. The majority of the videos I created were random, silly montages with scenes that were strangely tied together and contained vast amounts of odd humor and inside jokes.
There are over 30 videos in my YouTube channel that are from this high school era (the majority are unlisted, of course!) Though I rarely make videos like I used to, I still look back at my old work fondly: the memories that are brought back never fail to make me chuckle.
I’ve chosen 4 videos to share with you, so let’s jump right in!
(Warning: Embarrassing and awkward video footage from my high school years awaits you below. Proceed with caution).
This cute little video was based off of a script that I wrote specifically for my little sister, who was 10 at the time. I was nearing the end of my high school career and thinking a lot about college, so I thought it would be fun to flip the script and put my middle school-attending sibling in that position. What resulted is probably one of my favorite videos (I’m actually not too embarrassed by this one!)
This video actually documents a few events that happened during or shortly after the my high school graduation year. There are shenanigans during winter break, graduation parties, beach adventures and more. It’s definitely interesting for me to look back on the summer before walking on to GVSU’s campus for the first time. There are many people in this video that I haven’t seen in a very long time. Maybe some day we will reunite and watch it together!
My friend Dan used to live on a lake, and it was our tradition to have a birthday party for him at the end of the school year. Of course, this wasn’t a typical college party. Instead, it involved celebrating the beginning of summer with swimming, speed boat riding, tubing, kayaking, hot tubing, and lots and lots of pizza and Mountain Dew. Once I got into video creation, I thought it would be fun to create a video to “promote” his party (even though all of the guests were there by invitation). The end results are pretty cheesy (like most everything I do, admittedly!) but this video still makes me laugh.
In my sophomore video production class, I had a great time creating a 25 minute short film for my final project! However, I forgot to save a copy of my work, so once I turned in the project and the class ended, the film was lost forever. I tried to re-film it with my friends one day, but it was too big of a burden–we couldn’t make lightning strike the same place twice! We did get some interesting footage from our attempts, however. This video (which is surely the most awkward and embarrassing of the 4!) has a loose plot that is never fully resolved and is blended together with random scenes from various events. Though the re-filming project wasn’t successful, it led me to create this wonderful, awkward, hilarious, sometimes cringe-worthy video masterpiece.
I hope you enjoyed these goofy videos! Have a good weekend!
The main focus of my family’s summer 2007 road trip was to explore the country’s very first national park: Yellowstone. Established as a park in 1872, Yellowstone is well know for its abundance of diverse wildlife and geothermal features, like the Old Faithful Geyser (Wikipedia). I spent over a week camping in Yellowstone with my family, so we were able to explore much of this wondrous park.
Yellowstone National Park: Where the buffalo roam.
Driving in to the park for the first time, we were greeted by a large heard of buffalo. These beasts were absolutely fascinating, and would walk alongside our car when it was parked on the side of the road. Having never seen buffalo before, I knew we were in for an exciting adventure!
We saw different types of animals everywhere we went: deer, moose, black bears, grizzly bears, elks, wolves and many more. This land was truly diverse, and we never knew what we were going to discover next.
Old Faithful, a massive geyser that consistently erupts every 35 to 120 minutes.
The Old Faithful geyser was truly an amazing sight. Erupting every 35 to 120 minutes, it is one of the most predictable geographical features on earth. Eruptions can shoot 3,700 to 8,400 gallons of boiling water to a height of 106 to 185 feet in the air. I have never seen anything quite like it.
The roaring Yellowstone River.
The Yellowstone River is actually a tributary of the Missouri River. It rolls over the Upper and Lower Yellowstone Falls, and actually connects with Yellowstone Lake. I noticed boiling water from many hot springs flow into the river as well, making the tributary a connector for many of the various bodies of water in the park.
The beautiful and powerful Lower Yellowstone Falls.
Observing the Upper and Lower Yellowstone Falls was incredible. The falls are massive and stunning; they were certainly one of my favorite hiking destinations. Considering past travel experiences, I would say experiencing the Lower Falls (pictured above) felt like a mix between the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls.
Yellowstone is covered with intriguing (but extremely dangerous) hot springs.
Lastly, I was awed by the crystal clear, abundantly colorful and, of course, extremely dangerous Yellowstone hot springs. These hot springs are caused by the Yellowstone Caldera, a super-volcano beneath the park.
The diversity of Yellowstone was fantastic; we were able to explore a new area of the park every single day. I would without a doubt recommend visiting this park. It is an amazing experience, and I certainly hope to return one day!
Adventure Awaits 