Summer Adventures (Learning About Writing By Not Writing)

Summertime is over, and I’m honestly really sad. Summer 2021 zipped by like a bolt of lightning. Intense, crazy, and fast. Even though school has started and cold weather has sort of arrived, I’m still hanging onto the last threads of summer. This week, I thought I would talk about a few of the crazy adventures and lessons I learned from these past few months. 

June AKA Buffalo Watching and Window Washing 

In June, I started working two part time summer jobs, helping with some summer camps and washing windows with my dad. These were both such amazing learning experiences, and I really enjoyed working!

During a nice day of washing super tiny windows at a ranch, a herd of buffalo came up to the fence and watched us. Guys, those things are huuuge!!! I had some very Old Wild Westy music stuck in my head, and the buffalo herd just completed the picture *old wild westy chef’s kiss* 

I helped some family move houses, and had my cousin (technically, 2nd cousin, but cousins are cousins) After that we had a giant cousin family reunion, otherwise known as the Three Way Comical Cousin Conundrum. We watched a horror movie, then woke up at 6 am and watched a race car race with my uncle, and then witnessed my brother sprain his ankle on the trampoline. 

After that began 4th of July Craziness… which takes us into the month of July! 

July AKA Fireworks, Costumes, and Rafting Adventures 

4th of July is a bit crazy in small towns. My brother and I gathered up a huge group of friends (along with cousins) and ran an obstacle course. We got very muddy and had lots of fun. During the evening of fireworks, our neighbors almost turned our neighborhood into a firework and I hid inside for most of the duration of exploding fire glitter. 

After the 4th of July celebrations, I went camping at a lake where my brother and I broke all of the safety rules for a blow up raft. Then, I hung out with my friend, Charis (go check out her gorgeous blog!) while she was traveling. We braved an upstairs room without any AC during the hottest week of the summer and took over the local coffee shop multiple times.

After that, we went on a crazy rafting trip with my uncle and cousin and a few other people. Here’s some context: There is a set of rapids that my uncle floats that is quite infamous in our family. It’s kind of a rite of passage, in-laws, new people, almost everyone in my family has been on these rapids at least once. My brother, cousin, and I were finally old enough to go on this infamous trip, so we joined in on the adventure one Saturday. 

We came upon the infamous part of the river. We had to turn just perfectly to go through it without tipping the boat or getting caught on a rock… which is exactly what we did not do. We got caught on a rock. Water rushed into the lower side of the boat, and we all climbed to the high side of the boat. Then we spent 10+ minutes trying to get the raft unstuck. At one point, all of the experienced adults were out of the boat, pushing it while the three teenage newbies were in the raft. They got the boat unstuck, and the high side flipped up. We were all about to be tipped into the raging river. 

It stood straight up and down for a few seconds, and then miraculously fell back down, not tipping us into the white water of doom. I have never felt such a crazy adrenaline rush in my life, but surprisingly, my uncle said that it was only the 2nd craziest rafting trip he’d done. 

I also finished my 18th century costume! I’m going to tell you more about it in a future post, but I am so happy it’s done! 

August AKA New Floors and Old Ghost Towns 

My family’s washer unfortunately leaked, and the water got under the floorboards, so we had to replace the kitchen/laundry room floor. It wasn’t the most fun because our oven, washer, dryer, and fridge were all in the living room, further contributing to the chaos that was happening. 

Then we went on a trip, cramming me, three brothers, a baby sister, and two parents into our camper. We saw an old state prison, old ghost towns, museums, and waited an hour in line to get into a water park. By the end of it my brother was boycotting against museums and certain card games by the name of 75% Uno. It was a ton of fun, but I was ready to get back home. 

Where Does Writing Fall Into All of This?

Writing was put onto the back burner for this summer. In the whole time of three months where I wasn’t doing school, I reoutilined a story and wrote only three blog posts. For all of June, I was discouraged that I couldn’t write as much as I wanted to. But as I took a little break from writing, I learned a few things. 

I learned that when you don’t have much time to do something you love, that something becomes a million times more valuable. I found that I was writing the same amount or sometimes more words in thirty minutes than in an hour during the rest of the year. My writing time became valuable, which threw procrastination completely out of the window. 

I also learned that sometimes it’s important to live instead of write. We writers write about the world. We use our real world experiences to craft made up stories. But what if we didn’t have those experiences? How would we write about the world?

Even though I wasn’t writing, per se, I was still improving my writing. I got so much inspiration from the old ghost towns and rafting adventures. I had a few epiphanies about how I could fix my stories. There is still a balance to be found between actually writing and living. Too much of either probably isn’t the best. But I think there is so much value in experiencing the world and crazy adventures it throws at you. 

And… that was my summer! How was your summer? What is your favorite summer memory? What is the craziest adventure you’ve had? Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great rest of your day! 

-Hannah

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