Final travel writing paper draft 2

Oliver Crocker 

Carol Severino 

Travel Writing 

November 12, 2019 

State Track 

“How are you feeling?” 

“Nervous as hell,” I responded to my friend Caden. Our bus had arrived in Des Moines for state track the night before. It had felt like I had all the time in the world before my race back then, but here I was only 12 hours later getting ready to run in the 3200. A crowd of thousands of people filled the stadium around me, whooping and hollering as runners passed them along the track.  

“Yeah, I bet you are. I remember how nervous I was before my first race at state,” said my friend David. The three of us were the only distance runners from our school to qualify for state, all seniors. We’d been running together since seventh-grade cross country. David was the only one of us to qualify for state track in the past years. To me and Caden, this was entirely new. The two wished me luck as I left them to go to the infield. In other circumstances, they would’ve kept me company until my race started, but only runners on call for their race are allowed onto the field at state.  

Heat radiated from the turf as I stepped onto the infield. It was only 11 o’clock, but the temperature had already reached the upper 80’s. As I looked around me, I was astounded by the number of people gathered here from all across Iowa. The sport feels so much smaller until you’re standing in the stadium in Des Moines. I felt a wave of anxiety as I heard a gun signaling the start of a race ahead of me, followed by the roaring of the crowd. In less than a half hour, it’d be me at that start line. After forcing down the last of my water bottle, I decided to jog some laps around the track to try and calm my nerves. 

I’m not normally so nervous before my races, but these were special circumstances. The weather was one cause of concern. While I can handle a race in the freezing cold, running in heat is a different story. The exhaustion from running under the beating sun is unavoidable, and I could feel it before the race had even started. The setting of state track is also no less than nerve-racking. It looked like there wasn’t a single empty seat out of the 15,000 in the stadium, and I couldn’t help but stress over the fact that all those eyes would be on me if I slipped up during the race. More importantly, however, was the fact that this would be the first race I would run without any of my teammates running alongside me. I hadn’t run a race by myself since I first started running in middle school. There’s a great deal of comfort that comes with competing alongside people you know. With that taken away from me now, I was damn near a nervous wreck.  

As I rounded the corner and made my way back towards the entrance to the infield, I was relieved to be greeted by two runners that I knew from my district. Gavin and Harry ran distance at Marion High School, a school about 15 minutes away from my hometown. We competed against each other at nearly every meet of the year.  

“How are you guys feeling?” I asked them. 

“I’m nervous,” Harry responded. “Today I’m going for gold.” 

I knew he wasn’t joking when he said this either. Harry may not have been the top ranked runner, but he set his goals high before races and he had every reason to. Me and my teammates often referred to him as an animal which is a compliment in track. You never knew when he’d pop off in a race.  

“Well hey, I’ll be rooting for you man. We need to have a runner from the district at the top of the ranks,” I replied. It’s probably looked down upon to root for a member of a rival team, but I knew I didn’t stand a chance in the race anyways. I was seated 25th out of the 30 runners. Instead, my goal was to set a new personal record, but with the heat this wasn’t looking very likely.  

After we talked, I decided to finish warming up with them. It felt good to be around people I knew again. We did a couple run outs but were interrupted when a staff member called us over to the corner of the track. Pretty soon, we’d have to head to the start line for our race.  

Each of us did our last pre-race stretches before the event staff had us line up based on our seating. I wished Harry and Gavin luck as we split up and shuffled along the edge of the track to where the start line was located. I was a little less nervous now. Even though the heat was still unbearable and the stadium was still daunting, I could at least find comfort in knowing I had familiar faces competing alongside me. The starter fired the gun signaling the last race before us, and now began the dreaded 10-minute wait as we watched our fellow athletes take eight laps around the track before we followed in their footsteps.  

As the last runners crossed the finish line, we were brought in to replace them. Standing on the start line, I searched the stadium for my teammates and coaches, but it was impossible to find them among the crowd. The starter called us to set. I could feel my heart pounding in anticipation of the race. All my training during track season had led up to this moment: the countless hills, the innumerable laps around the track. Nerves quickly turned into adrenaline as the gun fired and we took off.  

Harry made his way to the front of the pack, Gavin following close behind. I fell into the back of the pack at the start, but I did my best to break my way out of it. Harry continued distancing himself from us as he tried to keep up with the leaders, but he eventually started to fall back. The heat didn’t start to catch up to me until around the seventh lap. By that time, it didn’t matter that I was being watched by thousands of people. My legs were now my only concern, which had gone completely numb to any feeling. I felt like a toddler running for the first time, and I’m sure I looked like it too. All my focus went towards where to plant my feet and when to transition my weight to take off for the next stride. With just a couple laps remaining, though, I pushed through. Harry crossed the finish line far from in first to his disappointment. I came in at 22nd, with Gavin just a few places behind me.  

I struggled to stay on my feet as I trailed off from the track onto the infield. I couldn’t help but feel euphoric as I realized I had just finished my last 3200 of my high school running career. I stumbled over to the water station to fill up where I was met once again by Gavin and Harry. 

“Great job, guys,” I managed to wheeze out.  

“Hey you too. That was a tough one,” Gavin responded before squatting in front of the cooler to splash the back of his neck with ice water. 

The three of us made our way back over to our bags where we sat and slowly changed out of our running spikes while other runners warmed up around us. They were both a little disappointed with the outcome of the race, but I was happy for them nonetheless. For Harry, this was his last 3200 of high school too, but Gavin still had a chance to come back next year to compete for a better place. When I finished changing out of my spikes and had rehydrated a little, I stood up to go find my coaches.  

Normally, our coaches wait at the gate leaving the track, but as I looked around and saw no one, I realized I would have to go searching blindly for them in the stadium. Stumbling along the walkway, people congratulated me as they saw me pass in my jersey and bib. Eventually I ran into my coaching assistant, J-Feld, on his way to the concession stand.  

“Great job, Oliver,” he said. “I know it was hotter than you would’ve liked but you did a good job competing out there. You got a 10:27,” he announced to my disappointment. State track is universally known as the place to lower your personal record, but I had fallen 25 seconds short of my own.  

“Thanks, J-Feld. Where’s the rest of the team at?”  

He pointed me to an entrance of the stadium where I was met by my teammates who congratulated and offered their sympathies to me for having to run in the heat. I was relieved to finally join them in the stands.  

As I sat with my teammates, I thought about how grateful I was to have found people outside of my own team to run alongside. If it weren’t for the Marion runners, I would’ve had a much harder time keeping up in the race. Running in an event for track is nerve-racking regardless, but running it alone is even worse.  

Final Essay Draft #2

Alex Franolich

Prof. Carol Severino

HONR:1300:0016

12 November 2019

Sleepless in Alaska

Looking back, I realize how often I go on trips concerning my dad’s aunt and uncle, my YaYa and PapPap. About a third of my summers have been spent with them in some way, and the first Christmas I can remember celebrating away from home was at their house.

The first big adventure I spent with them happened after that Christmas but long before now. It was the summer of 2015, right before the start of my freshman year of high school. I don’t remember why, but my dad decided we (he, my younger brother, Matthew, and I) should all drive up to Alaska from Boise, Idaho, and that we should go with YaYa and PapPap. A complete summer adventure, from the day after my middle school graduation until the first day of high school.

YaYa and PapPap had an RV, one that still works as well today as it did back then. There are the driver and passenger seats in the front, beneath what can be used as a bed; right behind the driver is a couch with two seatbelts; a swivel chair sits across from that and next to the door; and just past the door is a booth table with two seatbelts per booth. There’s also the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, but those aren’t important right now. What is important is the fact that my brother and I always fought over who got the swivel chair until about half-way to Alaska.

We rock-paper-scissored to decide who would get it the first day, and from there we switched daily. My dad came up with the solution. A few days into our trip, though, and I began to believe that either the swivel chair was over-hyped, or I just really got the short end of the stick. Eventually, I ended up just letting my brother have the swivel chair while I took the couch.

Somewhere in the middle of Canada, my boredom got the best of me, and that couch was the most comfortable place to sleep while in a moving vehicle. Why was I bored, though? Because I felt as though I had absolutely nothing to do! I did not have a smartphone at the time (and even if I had, my parents would not have wanted to pay international data and messaging fees), I did not take my hot pink Nintendo DSi with me, and I don’t think I had my iPod Nano at the time either. Reading in such a shaky vehicle made me feel sick to my stomach, and writing was out of the question. Talking to my family made me way too anxious, too; my brother was four years younger than me, so I didn’t really know what to talk with him about anymore, and my dad kept trying to bring up high school which was terrifying. YaYa and PapPap, while not strangers, still lived all the way in New Jersey, so I didn’t know how to talk to them, either.  So for weeks on end, while we drove, I would just sleep.

If we had played music in the RV, I do believe I would have been more inclined to stay awake, but YaYa hated listening to music when she drove. At one point on our drive back, I convinced her to play music, but she was so passive-aggressively angry the whole time that when she shut it off and never turned it back on again, I didn’t say anything and just continued to sleep.

Still, I’d wake up when we hit a neat attraction. There was a “garden” of metal creatures made from old bike chains, gears, pipes, and wires that was really cool. The garden included several species of dinosaurs (like the T-Rex, a pterodactyl, and a stegosaurus), cartoon characters (Snoopy, Thomas the Tank Engine), and a lot of giant insects (dragonflies, ants, butterflies). There were spiders, too, which were scary to see, since they were taller than my six-foot-tall dad, and I was only four-and-a-half-feet-tall at the time.

Another cool place was an almost-maze of signs. There were street signs, “Welcome to Insert State Here” signs, “Insert City Name Here” signs, population signs, and even license plates! My brother and I raced through the place, trying to find either our names or the funniest signs possible. There wasn’t a “Matthew” for my brother, but I did find a “Douglas” ― my dad’s name ― and my brother and I insisted we take a picture of him with it to send to our mom. Matthew ended up finding an “Alexandria” for me, which I still have very mixed feelings about; I hated being called my full name then, and I especially hate it now, so looking back on that memory feels weird.

I slept a lot less in Alaska, probably because we were actually going out every day to see attractions. My mom flew in to meet us there; as the primary breadwinner of the family, she couldn’t afford to miss a lot of work, but she still wanted to be with us. We ate a lot of fish up there, and we could still find snow even though it was July! We even saw a glacier at one point. I was finally awake to see a ton of wildlife as well, from caribou to bears to a moose.

On the way back, though, I surrendered to the couch again. I remember going to bed around eight o’clock one night then not waking up until a little after noon, just in time for lunch. My brother informed me that I missed seeing a giant metal mosquito, which made me glad that I slept for so long. I’d already suffered enough at the hands of giant metal insects and arachnids.

I’m a quiet person normally, but during that drive back I talked as little as possible. I think I was overwhelmed by how much had happened in such a short amount of time. Usually, I’d just retreat to my room for a few hours of solitude before returning to my family, but it was physically impossible to be completely alone in a single RV carrying five whole people. To make matters worse, my family kept trying to pull me into active conversations when all I wanted was to rest my overstimulated mind. Had I been aware of my own autism at the time, I think I could’ve de-stressed a lot easier and faster, and maybe my family would’ve been more perceptive to my needs. As it stood, what started out as an okay-to-great vacation was rapidly becoming one of heightened depression and anxiety. Background music that requires no interaction often helped, which was why I begged YaYa to turn on the radio for even five minutes.

The suffering came to an end, though, as all things do, when we finally made it back home. There was still a week before school started, and I definitely spent that entire week holed up in my room, trying to restabilize my mind. However, even though the latter half of our vacation had been way more stressful than it should have been, I found myself missing that old RV. I missed YaYa and PapPap, too.

And I found that I actually enjoyed the trip.

Final Essay Proposal

I want to expand on my snap the shot moment of the trip my family took to Yosemite. The focus or the idea behind the story would be my expectations of the trip versus how it actually turned out. We had planned on spending most of our time there being active and hiking, but we quickly learned that the trails there were hard and physically demanding. Additionally, we were not very prepared and quickly realized that we did not have the necessary equipment or enough water to be hiking. After becoming worn out from spending a full day hiking, we realized we could not do that every day. The story includes me, my brother, my dad, and my mom. Additionally, as we were on one trail, we met a couple who were experienced hikers who we talked to for a while. I had high expectations that our time in Yosemite would always be spent on trail, but ended up enjoying simply relaxing outdoors instead. I will talk about the one night I spent watching the sunset in a hammock after we spent the day on trail. Theme: going with the flow.

Final Essay Proposal

My final travel essay will describe a camping trip I took while I was in boarding school in Utah. We traveled up to Idaho for a few days. On the trip were my friends Ethan, Rico, Sofia, Lucy, and Skie, as well as several staff members. I remember that the trip was cut short because Sofia had a difficult time and threatened to hurt herself which meant we had to go back early. However we still had a good time. We went rock climbing, made hobo dinners, played games, and trained for our upcoming triathlon.

Final Essay Proposal

For my final travel essay, I am going to write about a week-long church mission trip I took to Kentucky a few summers ago. Even though the area I went to was only about seven hours away, the culture was a drastic shift from that of my Chicago suburb. My group worked to restore a trailer home for a family with two young daughters, and the family would often converse with us for hours as we worked. Through these conversations we learned of our many political differences, but also found much common ground. Our youth group was able to grow closer on this trip, and many friendships were formed and lessons were learned. The characters include the people from my church group, people from other church groups (from Michigan and Pennsylvania), the family who we were building for, and the people staffing the mission trip. A prominent theme is that although you may live in what seems like a different world from another person, a relationship can still be formed.

Final Essay Proposal

For my final travel essay, I plan on writing about when I was forced to go mushroom hunting in my grandparents' timber and how that experience opened my mind about nature. The theme of my essay will be about the sense of belonging through the inter-connectedness of nature and family tradition. My essay will also show how having an open mind leads to new discoveries and experiences. The characters of this essay will include me, my sister (Aly), my mom, and my grandparents.

Final Essay Proposal

In the summer of 2015, right before my freshman year of high school began, my dad, my brother, my dad's uncle (PapPap), my dad's aunt (YaYa), and I drove from Boise, Idaho, all the way up to Alaska and back. At the time, I did not have a smartphone on which I could play games, and I don't remember taking my Nintendo DSi with me, nor do I remember taking my iPod nano (7th generation). Now, when I travel places by car or similar means of transport, especially for such a long journey, I like to listen to music. My YaYa, though, hated listening to music while driving, so this trip I was forced to either talk to my family (something that causes a lot of anxiety in me), read the books I brought (which made me carsick more often than not), or sleep (which screwed up my internal clock).