As an icebreaker for our first department meeting this year, the boss asked us to write a few sentences on The Most Exciting Thing I Did This Summer, print it, fold it in quarters, and bring it to the meeting. We had to draw one from the basket (not our own) and guess whose excitement was whose. We had a blast, and laughed and laughed so much that our Interim Superintendent came in and joked that we were having too much fun to be paid for the day. Our boss explained that we were doing an icebreaker activity to build positive climate, so that we should really be allowed to remain on the clock.
I’ll share what I wrote (note: our Interim Superintendent came in right as the second sentence was being read)…..
I thought the most exciting thing I did this summer was riding to the top of the Arch in St. Louis and riding the Mississippi River riverboat, but then….
I visited the Fudge Factory in Uranus, Missouri and experienced a whole different idea of what I thought might be exciting and decided it wasn’t for me, so next….
I thought the most exciting thing I did this summer was going into a cavern that was discovered by a lost dog named Juno in the late 1800s and then confirmed by 12 female teenage cave explorers who answered a newspaper ad calling for spelunkers and signed their names on the walls of Fantastic Caverns, but then something else happened…..
I thought the most exciting thing I did this summer was riding along the edge of a storm-chaser quality storm in Oklahoma, but then…..
I ate at Sid’s Diner and had a Coney dog and thought that was the most exciting thing until….
I ate at The Big Texan in Amarillo and almost attempted the 72 ounce steak in one hour for free but changed my mind when they added the potato and all, but then…..
I tasted the coconut cream pie and coffee at The Midpoint Café in Adrian, Texas and it stole my heart for good, and that was holding the spot for the most exciting thing until….
I got in touch with my inner criminal and spray painted graffiti on this bunch of famous Cadillacs buried in the sand by this artist who made some famous murals, too, but then I put on my adventure hat….
….and went touring through Palo Duro Canyon State Park in Texas, where I saw a real, live road runner camped out under a picnic table seeking reprieve from the sweltering heat AND a smushed Mojave rattlesnake in the road – clearly too dead to care about the brutal
temperatures, and a Texas Longhorn I stopped and interviewed. That held the spot until……
I stayed at the iconic Blue Swallow Inn Motorcourt and ate Moon Pies, but then…..
I rode to the top of Sandia Park Tramway in Albuquerque and saw a hawk riding the rail
watching the shadow of the tram to scare up some prey he could dive and feast on, and
thought that might be the highlight until I realized…..
that the most exciting thing I did this summer was watch the changing landscape of America by highway, tasting the uniqueness of each state mile-by-mile, and decided that in all the travel I’ve ever done, I thought I’d seen France in Paris and England in London. But no. I now know firsthand what John Steinbeck meant when he wrote, “We do not take a trip. A trip takes us.”
I have been taken.
And that’s the most exciting thing that I’ve done all year.
Common Threads 