Get To Know: Jonathon
Get To Know: Jonathon
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MY TRAVELING LIFE
MY TRAVELING LIFE
I've always found it easy to be swept away by big stories, epic adventures -- real or imagined. As much as I loved and appreciated growing up in the "Racing Capital of the World" of Speedway, Indiana, I'd realized early on that I didn't want to live my life racing in circles. If I was to travel in circles, then those would be wide, epic egg-shaped ovals consisting of many states, if not countries.
EARLY ROAD-TRIPPIN'
My earliest road trips were out to Nebraska, where my father lived, but most were within my home state to visit family or play around at amusement parks like Indiana Beach at Lake Monticello ("There's More Than Corn In Indiana!") or to Holiday World in Santa Claus (yes, you read that correctly). A trip to swampy Louisiana to go fishing with my uncle and numerous summer trips down to hilly and humid southern Indiana to visit more family...my childhood was filled with little adventures that I'll never forget.
TRAVELING ABROAD...AND CALIFORNIA
Except for a day trip to Windsor, Canada, I made my first real trip outside the United States when I was 16 years old. In fact, I didn't just leave the country, I left the continent and the hemisphere entirely, arriving in Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, to represent the U.S.A. in a two-week international soccer tournament. Two years later, my parents sent me to San Diego, California, where I stayed with my uncle and aunt who gave me a car for the week, leaving me the freedom to explore that incredible city on my own or just lounge at Mission Beach for the day.Â
CROSS-COUNTRY TREKKIN'
During my senior year of college, my housemate and I decided on a whim to pack up, hit the road, and see where the great American highway took us. We ended up in San Diego, but the stories gained along the way from partying with strangers at University of Kansas all night to hiking the Kaibab Trail in the Grand Canyon still fill me with the energy to get back out there, to share with my children the adventure that road trips can offer.
BACKPACKING AROUND THE APPALACHIANS
For several years now, I've met one of my favorite people in the whole world for some backpacking somewhere along the glorious eastern gem we call the Appalachian Mountains. He lives in the D.C. area; I, in Indiana. We pick a spot months in advance and plan to meet each other there on a designated day. After a giant hug, we pack our gear (him being far more prepared than me), lock our vehicles, and start walking up some mountain. During the day, we're typically on the move; in the late afternoon, we're stringing up our hammocks and hanging the bear bag before eating some random Blue Mountain meal and silently watching the sun dip below the horizon. These trips truly revitalize me. There's absolutely nothing people can offer that is better than what Nature can.
SOMETHING TO PASS ON TO MY CHILDREN
These days, if my wife's not diligently working through "Disney Calculus," she's most likely meticulously calculating our next big road trip...down to the very last McDonald's sweet tea pitstop. Me? I'm the guy with his head in the clouds, dreaming up these vast road trips in which I would Clark-Griswold my way from state to state leaving no stone unturned. But it works and we've been able to laugh (and eyeroll) our way, children along for the ride, from beaches in southern Florida to, most recently, Yellowstone way out in Wyoming. And we have so many more adventures yet to come!
MY TRAVELING LIFE...IN PICTURES
Books As Maps to the World
"The national parks are the Declaration of Independence applied to the landscape."
"The national parks are the Declaration of Independence applied to the landscape."
A new addition to my Already Read list, this was actually a book I listened to during those long miles across Wyoming and South Dakota on my family's most recent "big trip." Ken Burns is -- and I mean this -- a national treasure, and his treatment of our national parks is unparalleled. If you want to ignite (or reignite) your love of America's Best Idea, then check this title out.
"Give me the splendid, silent sun with his beams full-dazzled."
"Give me the splendid, silent sun with his beams full-dazzled."
Way back in college, I discovered Walt Whitman. Now, truthfully, I first came across him in high school, but I didn't actually discover this gentle and thoughtful man until a few years later. I read this ode to life and to America once every couple of years. To read Walt Whitman is a practice in reflectiveness, and reflection is central to the road trip. "Give me the splended silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling." I mean, come on.Â
"The point of life was not to 'get a grip' but to loosen one's hold just enough to get a fleeting sense of release."
"The point of life was not to 'get a grip' but to loosen one's hold just enough to get a fleeting sense of release."
As the inside cover says, this is "a tale of two real and philosophical journeys -- the first made by [the author] when he is an introspective young man of nineteen, the other eighteen years later...now a husband a father, his wife and child in tow." I can relate to Kaag, traveling taking on an entirely new set of dimensions and challenges, but it can still be no less rewarding of an experience.
"We are shaped by what we commit ourselves to. We can look up and be shaped by mountains and sunsets. Or we can look down and be shaped by devices and yet another selfie."
"We are shaped by what we commit ourselves to. We can look up and be shaped by mountains and sunsets. Or we can look down and be shaped by devices and yet another selfie."
Roger Thompson penned an absolute gem. This collection of more than 30 travel essays takes you from deserts of the Southwest to shallow rivers of Montana. It's a poetic piece of writing that will challenge you to break from your everyday and seek something...else. Besides, it comes with some nifty hand-drawn maps.
"Some years passed before I began attending evening vespers sung by the monks in the crypt of his church. Mystical and ethereal, the chant was an audible living chain linking Matilda's age to mine."
"Some years passed before I began attending evening vespers sung by the monks in the crypt of his church. Mystical and ethereal, the chant was an audible living chain linking Matilda's age to mine."
Michele K. Spike has written one of the best biographies I've ever had the privilege of reading. Not only only does she visit each and every place she writes about (from Tuscany and Rome to Belgium) but she uncovers one of the most interesting people you've never heard of: Matilda of Canossa, lover to a pope and one of the most impressive leaders of the 11th century.
"The mountains are calling and I must go."
"The mountains are calling and I must go."
"And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul."
"And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul."
"We all travel the Milky Way together, trees and men."
"We all travel the Milky Way together, trees and men."
"Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt."
"Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt."
Yeah, John Muir needs no one to speak on his behalf, so I will limit what I say here.
"If I'd learned one thing from travelling, it was that the way to get things done was to just do them. Don't talk about going to Borneo. Book a ticket, get a visa, pack a bag, and it just happens."
"If I'd learned one thing from travelling, it was that the way to get things done was to just do them. Don't talk about going to Borneo. Book a ticket, get a visa, pack a bag, and it just happens."
Yes, this novel was made into a somewhat trippy film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but as I always say: The book is superior to the movie. This bit of fiction, though revolving around youthful flings between strangers and murderous tendencies of those you may stumble upon, it is, at its heart, an ode to travel, to adventure without seatbelts.
"I read somewhere...how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong, but to feel strong...to measure yourself at least once."
"I read somewhere...how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong, but to feel strong...to measure yourself at least once."
This is one of the more chilling true stories I've had the privilege of reading. Over and over again. Christopher McCandless, to me, embodies nearly everyone's yearning for something bigger. He embodies all of our deepest fears of becoming stuck in a world that cares not a bit about any one of us individually, but relies on us all the same. Reading Krakauer's work, it's a good reminder to break away from time to time. But you won't find me trying out any wildberries though, so it's good for that, too.
"Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year-old."
"Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year-old."
Bill Bryson. Another American treasure (though he's largely lived his life in the UK). He's authored a lot of great books, but, in my opinion, it doesn't get better than this. Taking to the Appalachian Trail, or The AT as it's widely referred to, he not only traipses up and down North America's oldest mountain range, but he also gives us a truly hilarious and deeply meaningful series of reflections as he seeks to find America on that massive trail. I'm not going to lie, part of my own fascination with the AT is due to this book.
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