ad·ven·ture. /noun

You know how people always say that they want "make this summer the best summer ever" and they plan all this crazy stuff, but when the summer ends they realize they maybe went biking once or twice and didn't do anything earth-shattering like they said they wanted to? That used to be me - before I met my best friend - Randy. What I've gathered is that you can plan to do all this stuff, but if you don't have the right somebody to share the experiences with, it's hard to get that stuff done.

Before I start, I should tell you how I classify something as an adventure. In my unprofessional opinion, an adventure is anything that's out of your comfort zone, something you've never done before or made time for before. That being said, it didn't take long after meeting Randy before we had our first adventure - segwaying in Chicago! We made a day of it - Randy, me, and my younger brother, Patrick. After segwaying, we all wanted to go up to the top of the Sears (yes, SEARS) Tower, so we parked in a parking garage and walked to the front of the Tower. However, the line was INSANE, and since we are all relatively impatient people and hate lines, we decided to do the John Hancock Building 360degree experience* instead. Funny story thought- right after we left the Sears Tower. We lost that little ticket that you get going into a parking garage that lets them know how long you've been parked in there, so we had to pay the highest cost ($42 or something) for only using the garage for 5 minutes.. Randy tried to get them to just watch the security camera footage - but I guess that was too much work for them and they lacked empathy for our plight... Anyways - John Hancock! I've never been that high in a building in Chicago before - so that view was awesome. Then we ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory at the bottom of the building - not something I'd say was an "adventure" - per se - but I decided to recap this day for you all, and in the name of thoroughness, I shall mention that detail.

(* - the name is cooler than what I thought a "360 degree experience" was. In my head, I was picturing a floor that kind of has a rotating platform all around the four sides. In reality, you just walk around the building and there are windows...)

July 2015 John Hancock Building

Since then, the adventures haven't stopped coming. In the beginning, though, they were smaller and more local - Wisconsin Dells, boating on/in Lake Geneva, going to Cubs games [I'd never been to one before, that's why I classify it an adventure]. Then in November 2015, we went down to Orlando, FL, for a conference called IAAPA - International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions. My parents have a time share with Holiday Inn and they gave us their points so we could stay at the Orange Lake Resort in Kissimmee, FL, in a bungalow. We spent a lot of time at the Orange County Convention Center near I-Drive in Orlando, went to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Parade [Disney prices are also crazy crazy high for out-of-state people - and we got to see the park after it "closed" at 4pm and still got to ride all the important rides], went to Universal Studios, ate dinner at the Universal City Walk's NBC Sports Grill, and drove through South-Central Florida (I'd never seen inland Florida that wasn't Orlando before). It was our first big adventure as a couple. After the New Year, we went to Minneapolis, MN; Milwaukee, WI; Eau Claire, WI; Fontana, WI; ATV-ing in Attica, IN; Galena, IL.

The moral of this blog - what I had started with the intention of, and now the attempt to piece it all together anyways - is that it really helps to be with someone who craves adventures just as much as you do. When there's someone special to see the world with, you can't wait to start new adventures. And that, in and of itself, is the best adventure someone could ask for.