I am a Spokanite by birth. As I grow into adulthood, in all the mess that such a practice is, I am able to sate my wanderlust more frequently as I untangle myself from who I am and what I want my life to be. Last month, it was a week traveling up and down the coast of Washington and Oregon. This month, it’s a whole new ball of wax in my practice of leaving home to experience myself and the world beyond. With my tax refund and some magic, I purchased a 45-day Amtrak rail pass that allows me 18 segments of travel in that period. Eighteen segments is plenty of travel, if you play your cards right and allow room for flexibility with the system.

Here, my morning ritual consists of: hazy-eyed dips in and out of consciousness in the hours between five and seven, the heinous sounds of my phone alarm around 7:25 a.m., a long groan, a roll out of bed, the donning of a sweater, and a walk out onto my downtown apartment's roof to stare at the sky and breathe in whatever the day may be. It's the method to my madness - I am a young woman who works two jobs in a city where I hold a certain amount of notoriety, and this time that I give to myself helps me with reckoning the world outside with the world within.

I assume my perch above an oft traffic-heavy street, before the rest of Spokane is awake enough to stroll its sidewalks and roll over its potholes. Being above it all allows an overview of my worldly day-to-day life, comforted by pigeons and the creeping morning light before I have to go meet the world halfway. The practice is born out of a longing to be unapologetically wild, with the understanding that I have to be a grown-up. That my responsibility as a young woman is to be the best version of myself I can muster (with mixed results, depending on my mood), but to not take any of it too seriously.

It wasn't until the cusp of slumber Monday night that I realized this was going to be my last night in my own bed for a solid while. I hugged my stuffed animal Maxine - the best companion I've had for the last fifteen years - and woke up with one of the most obnoxious songs in recent popular music history blaring through my head. In my green lawn chair, I told myself how much I believed in myself, even though at this point that should be the last thing I ever worry about.

At 1:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, I boarded my first train that began the six-week adventure across the country. Adventure is a huge thing for me, as I believe it should be for everyone, and this summer I'm taking off until August. A lot of people asked me why I was going. I don't know how to explain that, without being deconstructed, adventure should be reason enough. The question should be, why wouldn't I go? But instead I said, "to get out," or "to see other things" or "just because."

The truth runs a little deeper than that, though the nature of truth is something I tend to question frequently. I suppose a more whole explanation would be that the world puts a lot of noise in my head, and when I'm on an Amtrak (your girl has 1,500 guest rewards points at this point, from April on alone) it tends to shut up. The effect of riding a train is slow, comfortable stillness, punctuated by baby cries and the chatter of baby boomers about whatever cruise they're going on or family they're visiting. There is occasionally the loud drone of intercom narration about the scenic or historical importance of what is passing outside. And then there is me, tucked into my chair, head on my knees, melting into it all because it feels like home.

My first stop is Chicago, via the Empire Builder, which passes through Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin before Illinois. The Airbnb rental I requested - a privately run hostel for "open-minded music loving travelers" - was rejected, but I'm not too heartbroken over being denied the opportunity to sleep on a couch because I don't seem hip or underground enough on my freaking Airbnb profile. The fact that every hostel or room I've tried to book so far has backfired seems like a either a sign I'm already blowing this, or maybe the Universe has other ideas for me. Before I left, I was honestly more focused on tidying up my work as a photo archivist at the Spokesman, so the sweet colleague covering my post won't be overwhelmed by searching through the messy debris of folders with names like "FIRES" and "greek" that would only make sense in the jumble that is my head.

Nor did I raise a big stink about leaving. I hadn't even spoken to some of my closest friends in the weeks leading up to my departure about the trip at all. Tuesday morning I experimented with telling people that it was the last time they'd see me until August. It just made things awkward as I suspected it would.

It feels odd to even be writing this and telling you - whoever you are, whether you know me or not. I don't like saying goodbye, ever. It implies having to miss someone, which is my least favorite activity in the human experience. And to think that I’ll even be missed, given the relatively short time I’ll be gone and that I never really leave the people I care about behind (for better or worse), isn’t something I have the energy to wrap my head around right now.

Instead, I’m thinking of trees passing by me out the window. Of beaches, of big city skylines, of new smells and new streets to walk. Of waking up on a train. Of waking up on a stranger’s couch somewhere to the sounds of their own morning routine. Of waking up in my family’s house in the South. Of all of the things I can’t even begin to expect or imagine because it will be life, somewhere totally different.

I have a few stops specifically plotted out, per the guidelines of the my rail pass. After Chicago, New Orleans. Then New York, then Savannah, Georgia, and then Florida, where I spent my summers as a tween with my dad’s brother and family. I have been given the honor of being able to share my experiences here on the Spokesman site - to take Spokane with me in a way that is endearing and feeds my writerly hunger.

So, though I am not fond of goodbyes, I believe that it is not applicable in this context, because this post marks the beginning of showing those who choose to follow me all of the places my feet will stand on and traverse, the beautiful and curious things I’m beyond excited to see, and the observations that bubble up as a result.

In essence, an opportunity to explain the ever-evolving concept of adventure, so you can understand its importance to me, and maybe ponder about it for your own.