Day 15 “A Year of Thoughts”: A Detour is Part of the Adventure

A Detour.

 

For someone to come to or have a detour, it is a mistake or failure or hindrance that must be gone around. But those of you who choose to see the journey as an adventure may find the detour to be an awesome experience, full of the exciting unexpected. Sometimes those detours are forced upon us and other times the detours come from when we miss an exit.

 

Trying to find our way back to the right road can be full of uncertainty, rather frightening, and altogether challenging, but when we see the adventure in the detour, the challenge becomes a learning experience, the scariness becomes a memory, and the uncertainty is changed to confidence as you find your way back.

 

 

So in the past week of driving to New Mexico from Kansas and driving back again, we took two detours. Both of which were from missing an exit. After obtaining three maps, “enjoying” the smell of Dodge (sarcastically speaking, Dodge smells like road kill heaven), fighting everything in me that is a man and asking for directions, our second detour found us in Amarillo, Texas. I thought there would be a sign on the highway that should have pointed us to the road we needed- there quite possibly could have been- but somehow we missed it… and I got to experience a little more of Texas.

 

In detours we learn a lot about each other.

 

 

The challenge of the detours made for a great experience with my best friend. My worries were met with, “Chill, we’ll get there.” My uncertainty was a reminder that life is an experience. We’re human. We make mistakes. But failures and detours are not the end but rather a part of our journey. My life has been full of detours, failures and mistakes but they’re part of who I am. Part of a story I’ll tell my children someday. Some of my detours have allowed me to learn things I’d never thought I’d learn. Some of my detours have allowed me to share life and laughter and create memories with incredible people. Detours created time and space to talk, think and explore.

 

Sometimes when we come to detours, if we’re not thinking of it as an adventure, we find it annoying and time consuming. So… What would it take for us to change our thoughts?

 

To experience the detour?

 

To take life as an adventure?

 

Would we learn more?

 

Would we be challenged to find new ways to do things?

 

Would we be able to face our fears of the unexpected?

 

To be able to take our uncertainties and turn them into confidence?

 

To find hope in making our way back, taking the risk it needs to get there?

 

So next time you come to a detour or think over the detours of your life, choose to see it as a blessing, a part of your journey, and a chance to find adventure.

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

 

 

P.S. I dictated this to my best friend Megan Eby while we were driving back to Kansas from New Mexico

Day 12 “A Year of Thoughts”: A sort Fireside write for a Long Day

Four States, three stops, and a long car trip with my best friend to spend the weekend with my other best friends. Driving through Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and finally made it to New Mexico. The sun set fast over the mountains and shall rise tomorrow…

Day 7 “A Year of Thoughts”: To Travel… ALONE

To travel is a glorious thing, to travel alone is to wish upon yourself insanity.

 

It’s been a long day traveling alone, there was one point where half way through Missouri I felt like I was going crazy. I started questioning everything in my life and talking to myself. I stopped to clear my mind and my bladder, and thats when I got a call from my friend Seth Bartel. He too was traveling, a different route but alone. So talking to him for an hour about life and everything else helped me feel a little less crazy.

I don’t remember praying for someone to call me but God knew that was exactly what I needed. I think that call was a great reminder to me about humanities need for human interaction. A smile from the guy at the gas station is hardly human interaction.

I use to count cows to keep from going insane while driving across Kansas yet, I never once saw a real cow (the one on the chick-flea sign doesn’t count). Needless to say, I finally made it back to school, drained, a little crazy, tired and stiff, but excited for this last semester and some human interaction.

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 6 “A Year of Thoughts”: Packing up and Moving on

This place I once saw as home is fading from being my home. As I have spent the day packing to move back out to Kansas for my last semester of college I’ve looked around to the many things that I have hung on my wall and decorated what use to be my room. Now it’s just going to be a room of books and a study for my dad… It’s been good to grow up here in Indiana but I feel like I have moved on while it has just sat here.

 

It’s a long drive back out to Kansas but I’m looking forward to what this year has in-store. Last year at this time I was heading to Brazil, South America for an adventure in learning how to teach for six month. But Brazil was only sorta home. For me home is where my heart is, where I can pour out life to the fullest, I can love people more… Home is with some very special people or person… Home is no longer this house or room that I lived in.

 

I’m moving on and this house and much of the community will stay the same… I though have packed up and am adventuring on.

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter