It was on a Friday afternoon ...

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It was on a Friday afternoon, I was sitting at work, fake busy and just counting down the hours until it was time to go, when out of nowhere, I just decided that I wanted to book a flight and go somewhere the next day, and I didn’t care where. For me, as long as it was out of Dallas, TX, as long as the weather was right, as long as the price was right, and as long as they had public transportation, my name was going to be on that plane ticket.

Now remind you, I was fairly new to the travel world at this time, so for me to just up and decide to leave without research, it was a big deal, but I just wanted to be gone, and in less than 24 hours, I found myself on a plane to Philadelphia, PA and nobody knew about it, not even my mama.

You see, before this, I was always under the assumption that flights booked closer to the departure date, especially this close, would be expensive, so when I first started to look at flights, I didn’t take it serious, but just in case, I was still ready for whatever, and to my surprise, boom, Philadelphia “one-hundred-and-fifty-dollars,” and with perfect flight times too. Man look, feeling that the price might have been a mistake, I bought that flight faster than OJ left out that courtroom in 95.

Now, what made it so real was, not only was I was going by myself, “as usual,” but I really didn’t know anything about Philly: a street, a building, a person, what their downtown looked like, or what I was going to do there. All I knew was, over the summer while on Snap Chat, Philly came across while they were doing the city takeovers and it showed the “Liberty Bell,” two, that they had cheese-steaks, three, that “Love Park” used to be on all the skateboard videos I watched when I was younger, but that didn’t hit me until I saw it in person, and four, that Meek Mill was from there, which was ironic, because “DC4” had just dropped that night, and I the song “Blue Notes” on repeat almost the entire flight.

But that next Saturday morning, you couldn’t steal my joy, I was really on my way like never before, and nobody had a clue about my move, hell, I was still trying to believe it, and almost a whole day went by before I told anybody where I was. Dangerous, yea I know, because anything could have happened, and nobody would have blah blah blah, but the bliss of it all was in full effect for your boy, and to add to it, I was living out a simple goal I had made for myself since I had started traveling, which was too one day, wake up, buy a plane ticket that left the same day, and just go, and I had sort of did that with this one, so I was happy.

People think I’m crazy, but at the same time think it’s cool that I’m as spontaneous as I am when it comes to travel, and I’ve actually made it my style of travel since this one, so now I never plan. I just don’t believe in being scary, whether it’s in life and or travel. I just refuse to live always worried, always trying to plan, always trying to follow this schedule and that schedule, or include this person or that person, I can’t live like that. I’d rather risk me flying clear across the country, and it being a bad time, than including someone along with me, and they ruin a good time, for me.

SN: Philly surprised the hell out me too. I didn’t realize how much history it had there, from the:

Foundation where G. Washington housed 9 of his slaves: Hercules, Austin, Paris, Joe, Mole, Oney Judge, Christopher Sheels, Richmond, and Giles.

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Independence Hall

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Liberty Bell 

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 Historic Parks (Tomb Of Unknown Soldier)

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All Wars Memorial To Colored Soldiers 

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…and I even rode a bike across the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, to Camden, New Jersey. 

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Ashton Keith

Guest Contributor / Blogger

Urban Events Global

 

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