First Time to an Island

After I finished eighth grade my older brother was a high school graduate, so my family decided to go somewhere fun as a reward and we chose to go to Hawaii. If you don’t already know Hawaii has four main islands. Most people choose to visit Maui which is the most touristy. Instead of going to Maui we went to the Big Island. Our flight had a short layover in San Diego before the seven-hour flight to the island. We got onto the island in the middle of the day and as I was walking off the plane I remember thinking how weird it was because Hawaii’s airport is all outside, so basically you got off the plane outside. Hawaii is so beautiful with the sunsets and palm trees, we ended up walking everywhere because there was never not a nice day.

 

Within the time we spent there the guys in my family took a day and flew to another island to tour one of the Military bases while me and my mom stayed on the big Island and shopped. Later that evening we went to a Luau across the street from our hotel. It was so neat to see their gatherings. The next day we went on a boat and swam with dolphins in the Ocean. Although they were not trained and would not come next to me I still got very close. Another activity we did is scuba diving in a beautiful reef. Every beach we visited you could rent scuba gear which is what I wanted to do because it is so amazing and nothing you can experience in Kansas! Although instead of scuba diving again my family chose to take surfing lessons for a day. Experts make it look easy, but it is not! Don’t be surprised but you get very sore from sitting on the board and waiting for the right wave all day. A final thing we did was tour the active volcano (which exploded sometime in the last year). It was around an hour and a half drive from where we were staying but it was well worth it. We got to walk pretty close to the volcano, I could feel the heat on my face, yet we were still pretty far away. Throughout the island they had black rocks from previous volcanos which was neat to see.

Back to My Hometown

I was born in Chattanooga Tennessee and eventually moved to Kansas City when I was nine years old because all of my family lived here, and my dad had a job offer. Since I moved I have gone down and visited almost every year. I still have a lot of friends who live there. Especially my godparents. I stay at their house when I go there. They have a really nice property and we go boating on the lake right outside of their neighborhood. Another day we hike, Tennessee is good for hiking in the Chattanooga area because it has a couple of small mountains unlike Kansas. My favorite is the one I lived by called Lookout Mountain. We go to church with my godparent’s family on Sunday and then after as a tradition we go to McDonalds for breakfast and I get their hash brown patties.

A fun thing to do in the fall is go to the pumpkin patch. It is not all a pumpkin patch they have a lot of walking and the drive there isn’t the most fun but once I get there I had a blast. They have a playground with about every kind of playground equipment you can think of. My favorite thing at the pumpkin patch is the tire swing, I could spend hours on it just swinging around. One time I went to the pumpkin patch with a broken arm but that didn’t stop me from playing on the tire swing! The only thing I did not like about Tennessee is in the winter it was never cold enough to snow a lot. When it did snow it was the most exciting thing and there was never a time when I was not playing in it. I lived on a steep hill and when it snowed hard and we could not get out we skipped school and spent the day playing in the snow!

Metabolic Camp in Atlanta

Every year for the past three to four years I have gone to Atlanta, not for a fun vacation or to go sight-seeing, I went for a metabolic camp. The camp is held at Emory University in fraternity houses for a rare metabolic disorder called Phenylketonuria (PKU).

To sum it all up, PKU is where someone was born without an enzyme in their body that breaks down phenylalanine which is found in most foods with protein. If a person with PKU eats protein it can affect their brain and eventually lead to seizures or lifelong damage to the brain. I have been going to this camp for multiple years as a way to meet people with the same disorder as me, since it is so rare. Also, because the camp focus’ on other things about living with PKU, like how to explain it to other people. It is a week-long camp for girls over the age of 12 to help cope with PKU and manage a diet with minimum amount of protein.

Within the week that I spent at Emory I cooked meals during the day, had a DJ at night, sometimes go to the pool for a pool party and we always spend one day off campus and go do something fun. Last year we did some shopping in Atlanta. The year before we went to a place that had a lot of arcade games, and laser tag. The camp isn’t always about going out and having fun, we have a few lessons throughout the day to help us later inlife as we become adults.

I flew down to Atlanta with one of my great friends named Addison who has PKU too and we have shared a room together every single time I have gone down to camp. Addison and I snuck out every night and took a walk around campus and make it a tradition called a nightly adventure. It was a really fun because there were always a lot of camps going on around campus which is why i kept going back every year!

Weekend on the Lake

I spent the Labor day weekend at the lake like most people. It was around a four hour drive to the lake house at Beaver lake.

I had gotten there at a good time as there was still daylight to go down and enjoy the water for a couple hours before we lost daylight. The water was perfect for a summer swim. Not too hot or cold. When I had gotten into the water for the first time of the trip, it was well worth the four hour drive. The water was cleaner than most lakes in the Arkansas area and I enjoyed every minute of it. Then the beautiful colors of the sunset filled the sky with warm orange and yellow colors as we then called it a day.

 

The next day was one of the more fun days on the water as this was the day we would finally get on the boat and start to do some water sports. The first thing we did was tube on the water, for 6 hours. It didn’t feel like that long but the sunburn I had after words started to burn. For those of you who don’t know what tubing is, tubing is a fun activity that is a great experience. An inflated raft is tied to the back of a boat and to the tube and the boat would accelerate to a decent speed, but the faster you go, the more fun it is. But do you think we just went straight? No, not at all. The driver of the boat was turning left and right was throwing us around and I had fallen off the tube, so many times, but then after the long hours of that, we had called it a day.

 

The last day on the water, I had a great idea. I wanted to get the most out of the time we had left here at the lake. So I went to wake up everyone else at the lake at 6 a.m. to get on the water to go wake surf. Most of the other people didn’t like me so much after that, but after they all thought it was worth it. I had wake surfed before and I wanted to do it again. I had fallen the first couple of times but eventually got up and enjoyed the ride. Then after breakfast we tubed some more or course, and then got all packed up and left to come back home. I suggest giving the lake a shot if you’re looking for a fun weekend on the water.

 

Vacation in Greece

 

This last summer I took a trip to Greece. A lengthy fifteen-hour flight turned into a never-ending three-day flight due to many delays. Flight after flight we eventually got to Greece and took a ferry to Mykonos Island to spend a few days there. I spent a day touring old fashioned windmills and spent the rest of the time on the beach. I suggest you spend a lot of time at the beach because the water is absolutely beautiful, it is crystal clear and worth a trip to witness bright blue ocean water to capture with your own eyes.

Within a few days I got back on the ferry and rode to Santorini which was our next island stop. In Santorini I did a lot of shopping and visited the Red Beach which is left over lava from an exploding volcano, and also visited the Black sand beach. The Greek islands are known for their sunsets, people will sit for hours and just watch the sun set. On any island in Greece a lot of people walk everywhere to get around to places unless they rent a scooter or ATV. There is also not a ton of elevators so I walked up about six flights of stairs just to get to my hotel.

After a few days in Santorini we took a seven-hour ferry ride to Athens where we ended our trip by going to the Acropolis. It was very interesting and factual, if you take a tour like I did. The town of Athens is very surprising. There was a lot of graffiti on old buildings and traffic is always crazy. I spent multiple hours out of each day walking up and down streets just shopping. A lot of the stores on the island have a lot of the same product, but it’s still interesting to look at.

Island Hopping in Greece

This last summer I took a trip to Greece. A lengthy fifteen hour flight turned into a never ending three day flight due to many delays. Flight after flight we eventually got to Greece and took a ferry to Myknos Island to spend a few days there. I spent a day touring old fashioned windmills and spent the rest of the time on the beach. I suggest you spend a lot of time at the beach because the water is absolutely beautiful!

Within a few days I got back on the ferry and rode to Santorini which was our next island stop. In Santorini I did a lot of shopping and visited the Red Beach which is left over lava from an exploding volcano, and also visited the Black sand beach. The Greek islands are known for their sunsets, people will sit for hours and just watch the sun set.

 

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton