It’s been over 18 months since we returned from our RTW trip.  It’s been a roller coaster of a ride over the last 4 years, from the inception of the trip to the planning to the going to the return.  I’m not going to lie.  I have struggled mightily at times with our return, and even though we’ve been back for over a year and a half, I still wonder if we should be here at home or back out on the road.

Confusion

There are a lot of reasons for these thoughts.  It’s not that I’m unhappy here.  I am very happy, but I still have the same feeling I had before we decided to take the trip.  Sometimes I feel as though something is just missing.  At times, there’s a bit of an empty feeling that I can’t quite put my finger on.  That feeling rears its ugly head at different times, and sometimes I’ll go months feeling perfectly happy and at ease.  Typically when I’m feeling down and confused about my career path is when those feelings come roaring back.

Becoming a Tourist in your Own Town

But this post isn’t about that.  Instead of dwelling on those feelings, I would rather focus how to deal with them.  Megan just started a new job, I am just now finally starting to monetize this site and actually make some money off my writing, and we are about to welcome a new niece into the family at any moment.  So we aren’t going anywhere in the near future.

So rather than feel down and depressed and hoping for something that’s not going to happen, I felt a better use of my time would be to make the best of home.  I wax poetic all the time about my hometown of St. Louis, telling anyone who will listen how great it is and how it needs to get more love in the travel world.  So now it’s time to practice what I preach.  My new goal is to become a tourist in my own town, exploring areas of the city and activities that I have never taken part in before.

With the warmer weather upon us and summer right around the corner, it’s time for festivals, barbecues, parades, and activities galore.  With so much to do, it’s silly to sit here and lament the fact that we’re not traveling.  There’s tons to do here in my hometown, and it’s time to make more of an effort to take part in activities I’ve never done, despite living here the vast majority of my life.

Cinco de Mayo

We have an area here in the city that has a lot of Latino residents, and one particular street has been up and coming over the past 5 years.  Cherokee Street, home to head shops and prostitutes back in the 90′s when I was in high school, is now filled with a plethora of amazing and authentic Mexican restaurants and markets (it’s still a bit rough around the edges, but that adds to its charm).  This past weekend, Cherokee Street was home to the Cinco de Mayo Festival and Parade, with live music, tons of food, and an oddly awesome and random parade.

It’s the Little Things that Bring you Back

Megan had other plans on Saturday, so I took off solo to explore the festival before meeting other friends down there.  Normally I would have packed a little cooler and put most of my focus on sipping some cold beers and sampling as much of the local fare as possible.  I would usually bring a small camera with me, but most of the time it would just sit in my pocket as I focused on beer consumption.

But with my new goals in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to treat this afternoon as though I was traveling.  So I packed my little travel bag that usually sits in the closet while at home, bringing my nice DSLR camera, some sunscreen, my dry bag in case it rained, and my little point and shoot in case I wanted to take some video.  As I headed out the door, I was excited, and as stupid as it sounds, simply having the bag that accompanied us around the world made me feel as though I was back on the road.

Feeling like a Tourist

I couldn’t have been more pleased with my experience as a tourist in St. Louis.  As I wandered around solo with camera in hand, I felt as though I had never been down here before, despite the fact that I have been familiar with this area for nearly 20 years.  I noticed things I normally wouldn’t have paid attention to.  I was more outgoing than usual, chatting with food vendors and getting up close and personal while taking photos.  I made mental notes of restaurants we had yet to eat at, and I made a promise to myself to come back down to explore some of the Mexican markets, something Megan and I love doing when in other cities.

After wandering, snapping hundreds of photos, and familiarizing myself with the layout of the festival, it was time to meet up with my friends.  So I put my camera away and went back into St. Louis mode, taking off my tourist hat, grabbing a beer, and becoming a resident again.

One of the biggest reasons we travel is to experience new and interesting things.  That’s probably the simplest and easiest way to explain my love of travel.  Honestly, I just get bored with the same ol’ same ol’ all the time, which partially explains my wanderlust.  I went to 2 different high schools, 3 different colleges (4 if you count grad school), and I am on my third different career since graduating college 10 years ago.

Since I have lived here nearly my entire life, and let’s face it, St. Louis is no New York City, I sometimes think there’s nothing new to do here.  How wrong I was.  I never been down to this particular festival, and while the food and demographic was a little different than I was used to with St. Louis festivals, it was still pretty typical.

Then the Parade Started…

And this is precisely why it’s important to remain open and adventurous, always willing to explore  more of your own city, even if you’re less than 10 miles from your house.  You never know what you’re going to encounter.  We settled into a good spot on the side of the road to watch the Cinco de Mayo parade, and within minutes, the confusion began.

First, it was the fact that the floats in the parade didn’t seem to have anything to do with Mexico or Cinco de Mayo.  As it went on, this parade confused us even more.  Not only did it not reflect the holiday we were supposed to be celebrating (save for some sombreros here and there), but the floats and people marching were so odd and random that it baffled and confounded us.

From the crazy hipsters flying around on their scooters, coming dangerously close to the crowd while doing tricks, to what looked like floats celebrating the Chinese New Year, to the hippies with hoola hoops, to a man dressed as Jesus, complete with a cross, throwing candy out to the kids, to the finale of bands playing loud, electronic, rave-type music while wearing even odder outfits, this was one of the weirdest yet most entertaining parades I’ve ever observed.

This bizarrely awesome parade was a complete and total shock.  I’m not typically a fan of parades.  They’re fine, but I get rather bored quickly.  This had me on the edge of my seat the entire time, and it was all we could talk about as the day went on.

Acceptance

If someone came to us tomorrow with a million dollars, my guess is that it wouldn’t be long before we were back on the road.  Since I don’t see someone dropping off a bag of money anytime soon, it’s long overdue to accept where we are now and start enjoying life more.  I’ve spent too much of the past 18 months lamenting the fact that our trip is over and nothing else is on the horizon.  It’s time to start researching my own city, exploring and attending events I’ve never gone to before.  It’s time to become a tourist in St. Louis, realizing that even in a place I’ve lived in for the better part of 33 years, I can see and experience plenty of things I’ve never experienced before.

Have you become a tourist in your city before?  What did you do?  Have you found any events that have been a pleasant surprise?  Comment below to tell your story.