By Adam Kaplan
As many of you know, a large chunk of the “off-season” for Adam Fornear and me is dedicated to traveling around the country for camp reunions. To date, we have already visited fourteen cities this winter with many more to come! In fact, we figure that we travel about 10,000 miles a year together in a car, and this is our tenth year doing so. Imagine that….100,000 miles in a car with either of us as your travelling companion. Needless to say, we know each other well – the quirks, the sleep habits, the eating weaknesses, the musical tastes. (Though, in truth, we rarely ever listen to music. Believe it or not, we spend most of our time either talking about camp, or ribbing each other about one thing or another. We tried books on tape, but Fornear could never stay awake, especially problematic when he is driving! Personally, I think he fakes falling asleep during the books on tape because he misses talking to me.)
Adam and Fornear at the Manhattan Reunion
Without a doubt, this annual cycle of travel is one of the more fun aspects of this job. Through this work, we have been through forty-seven states in the past fifteen years (amazingly, we have never been able to pull off Vermont in the lower 48!), driven through countless beautiful landscapes, visited some of the more iconic and interesting off-the-beaten-track sites around the nation, and, most importantly, visited many people in their own hometowns.
This experience has allowed us to notice many things about different communities. First off, we have noticed that, no matter which metropolitan area we seem to be in, there is a HUGE shopping area with a Best Buy, a Target, an Olive Garden right next to a Red Lobster, several Starbucks, a Bed, Bath and Beyond, a Home Depot, and an Office Depot. We have become completely convinced that were we to be blindfolded and taken to any one of these shopping areas around the country, when the blindfold was removed, we would have absolutely no idea where we were. But….that triple Caramel Macchiato would still be pretty darn good!
And then we have noticed that each town has its own feel to it as well. Whether it be the beautiful brick homes of St. Louis, or the lovely wooded feel of Louisville, or the steep hills of San Francisco, or the stunning views of Lake Michigan from all over the Chicago area, or the awe-inspiring concrete jungle of Manhattan, every place we visit seems to have its own character and uniqueness.
Highlights from DC, including the reunion and a walk through the monuments at night
One of the other things we have been struck by is the sense of pride almost everyone has about where they live. If you give them an ear, they will regale you with tales about how the people in their town are the nicest, how the weather is the best, how they have the most wonderful restaurants (and by the way, almost everyone will claim to have the best barbeque restaurant anywhere….something that I have really enjoyed trying to flesh out!), and how, simply put, they live in the best place in the country. At first, I assumed that this was simply a byproduct of living a somewhat insular life. I thought people just needed to travel and see what life is like outside of their hometowns. While this may certainly be a part of the reason people are so positive and passionate about the place that they live, I think there are at least two other important factors that play into it.
The first is this idea of diversity that we hear so much talk of these days. In most cases, diversity is mentioned in reference to the color of people’s skin or their ethnicity. But, clearly, all of the extraordinarily varying tastes in geography are symbolic of another very real aspect of diversity. Those folks that live in San Diego are passionate about warm days and want nothing to do with earmuffs and scarves. The families that hail from Minneapolis cannot imagine a January without sledding and snowball fights. The folks that live in Denver or Salt Lake would feel at a loss without the mountains surrounding them. The families that hail from New York City would feel completely cut off were it not for their intensely busy and cosmopolitan surroundings. This is real diversity in action.
The second factor that plays into why folks are so dedicated to their hometowns is just that…….it is their home. It is the place where they have either grown up, or raised their kids, or both. It is the place where they enjoy all of life’s highs and endure all of life’s challenges. It is the place they are comfortable. No other place can possibly match up to HOME. It is the best place on earth. (Now, my friends often make jokes about the fact that I always find a way to tie these articles back to camp, so I won’t do it this time. Though, it might be an interesting exercise to re-read this paragraph and think about your OTHER home!)
Happy New Year to all of you and, for those whom we have not visited yet this winter, we will see you soon!