• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Janice Beetle Books

Writing, editing, book development, and publishing help

  • Home
  • About
    • My Books
    • Clients’ Books
    • Privacy Policy
  • Services
    • Creative Writing Review/Coaching
    • Book Development /Writing
      • Book Development Sampler
    • Book Editing
    • Copy Editing
    • Book Design
    • Publishing Guidance
  • Blog
  • Poem Pods
  • Shop
  • Contact
  • Order My Book
You are here: Home / Adventures / Adventure Training Gives Travel a Boost

Adventure Training Gives Travel a Boost

December 26, 2015 by Janice Beetle Leave a Comment

Note: This is the first of fifteen parts.

It’s a good thing I trained for my month-long journey to the South Pacific.

If I hadn’t, and my adventure muscles were flaccid and un-flexed, I might be flying now over the mountains of the mid-west, wondering if I planned well, packed well and anticipated all possible glitches.

Instead, I am confident and excited that I can handle any physical and emotional toll that might result on this roughly 6,000-mile trek, over 30 days away from home and habits, on an island where electric power and clean water are not to be taken for granted.

I’m headed to Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands, where my youngest daughter, Molly, is teaching first grade. I have the luxury of spending a month with her in her new home, where I plan to get to know her colleagues and students and explore the mainland and surrounding islands.

I have a carry-on full of Christmas gifts from home—including a few decorations, a copy of Twas the Night Before Christmas and a Kringle candle that smells like balsam fir. I have summer clothes, running gear, fins and snorkel, swim suits, festive garb, hostess gifts and a dozen pharmaceuticals from antibiotics—just in case—to Pepto Bismal and nighttime cold medicine.

I am ready for what comes my way.

I’ve always been an organized person, but I haven’t ever been very adventurous. I’m rather a home body and enjoy my routine. This summer, though, after Molly left home to take her new teaching job across the world, I started pushing myself out of my comfort zone—just because.

One morning, for instance, I packed a backpack and got on my bike for the first time in summer and rode from Easthampton to Belchertown on a series of bike paths. The ride was about 30 miles, and it felt great when I arrived home, goal achieved.

Likewise, I ran the entire length of the Manhan Rail Trail near summer’s end, about 11.5 miles round trip from my house. I rented a kayak and spent an afternoon solo-paddling up the Connecticut River. And in early fall, I went camping in the White Mountains with only my dog, Lipton, for company.

Each time I planned and set out on one of these mini-quests, I got that nervous, what-am-I-doing-feeling in the pit of my stomach, even when the only pressure to achieve the intended goal was coming from within.

I got that same feeling in the week before my trip departure date of Dec. 20. I kept wondering what the hell I was doing, leaving everything behind for a month in a place so far away and so small you literally need a magnifying glass to see it on a map.

Once I’d made the first leg of the trip, from Windsor Locks, Conn., to Chicago, though, and was snug in gate B17, leaving O’Hare for Honolulu at 9:15 a.m., I realized, “Hey, I got this.”

I have what I need, and if I don’t, I’ll figure it out.

It was only then I started to imagine how fun it will be to greet Molly at the airport in Majuro, and as I did on my mini-excursions this summer, I started to relax and look around.

I experienced toilet seats at the airport that rotate counter-clockwise so as to coat the seat with a clean, fresh piece of protective plastic. (Yes, who knew?)

I devoured a blueberry muffin the size of my fist, in which I counted one actual blueberry.

I watched, impressed, as a woman traveling alone very graciously, and quietly, accepted the fact that she had missed her flight to Cincinatti by about five minutes.

And I did a serious high-five when I boarded my plane and discovered I was in the very, most absolute last row of a huge 747 with no seat mate. A two-fer jet pack was all mine.

So, I am strapped in for that month of adventure.

Bring it on.

Click here to read the next blog in this series. Make sure you don’t miss it; sign up to follow this blog on the Home page, in the sidebar.

← Previous Post
Next Post →

Filed Under: Adventures, All Tagged With: family, travel

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Judith Kelliher says

    December 28, 2015 at 4:33 am

    Buggy, so glad that all your prep work paid off!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe

Please enter your email address to receive blog posts by email.

Categories

Recent Posts

  • Larceny in the Aisles is Hot Off the Press!
  • Ten Tips for the Travel Writer-Wannabe
  • Thrilled to Meet My Client From London

Archives

  • October 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • October 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • September 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • November 2012

Footer

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

© 2023 Janice Beetle Books · Privacy Policy
Content by Janice Beetle Books · Site by Turn Signal Media