Life in the Ancient World: "We Are Still Pioneers."

We rolled back into Porto Rafti Thursday evening after a 4-day/3-night trip up through Northern Greece. This included stops at Delphi, Meteora, Vergina, Berea, Thessaloniki, Philippi, Dion and Thermopylae. To see all these places required a lot of driving. Did I say a lot, because I mean A LOT!

Greece is roughly the size of Alabama, my home state. The last day of our trip has us diving from Thessaloniki (only 30 miles from the border of Macedonia) all the way back to Porto Rafti (only 15 miles north of Attica’s southern most point). That means with no stops the final day is about 6 hours of pure driving.

Hear me out, 6 hours is not terrible at all! I know terribly long road trips. As a kid, my family used to take two-week long vacations by car all over America. My parents had divided the country into 5 parts corresponding to 5 trips. Before I detail these trips let me tell you one important fact: these weren’t fun trips. Well, they were fun, but not in the sense of waterparks and theme parks. No, they were educational- which was still fun…. most of the time. Here’s what I mean. I’ve been to every state east of the Rockies and almost all of their capitals by car. I’ve also been to pretty much every presidential library, boyhood home, birthplace, burial site, famous museums, natural wonders, monuments, quirky exhibits, etc. east of the Rockies. If it’s important to our nation’s history and it’s east of the Rockies, I’ve probably been there!

We did one trip each summer, staring after first grade for me and they went as follows:

I don’t believe the first one was two weeks. It was our baby trip, probably lasting a little over one week. From Alabama we drove to Washington D.C. and other places close by.
The next year we attacked all of New England. My family loves to tell a story of me from this trip. We arrived at our hotel in Freeport, Maine around midnight. As an 8 year-old, I was asleep/dead tired. My dad and sister asked the hotel receptionist how late L.L. Bean was open. When we were told it never closes, my bed time got pushed even further back as my family shook me awake and nearly threw water on me to get me up and going. Before I knew it, the four of us were exploring L.L. Bean at 1 am. I remember thinking those tents looked mighty enticing to crawl into a sleep. (Don’t be deceived; my family is always up for a crazy adventure!)
The next year was a trip up through the Midwest and even briefly into Canada- my first international experience.
The next year was a trip was out west, but not beyond the Rockies. This meant through Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, on up into the Dakotas and so on until we looped all the way back home to Alabama. I’m particularly proud of this trip because we were going up to South Dakota where I knew Mount Rushmore was and my family wasn’t planning on visiting it! Honestly, we were hours away from it but as a kid I practiced my future PR persuasion tactics and kept telling them how I couldn’t believe we would go all the way to South Dakota by car and not see Mount Rushmore. It’s the same speech I give HUGers all the time over here: You didn’t come all this way to not (fill in the black with whatever they are thinking about skipping). Anyways, I pulled it off and we saw the four stone heads.

As I got older we would repeat the Washington trip a few times, the New England trip another time and even another somewhat repeat by driving up to Chicago and some surrounding states for a second time.

I love driving and riding in the car! I like to see where I’m at and how we got there. So during all of our many hours in a bus last week it got me to think about travel and roads. We live in a time where travel is so easy! So many barriers that kept man from traveling (or made it difficult) are falling.

As you know, I travel Greece, Egypt, Israel and Turkey a lot. Most of our stops are to tour the archaeological sites and ruins from older civilizations. What is interesting is that most of these archaeological sites were discovered in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. In many cases we knew the sites were there for centuries, we just didn’t uncover them until the last 200-ish years.

I asked our guide why this was, why archaeology was a relatively new discipline. After all, cities like Corinth, Philippi and Thessaloniki have been important to Christians for two thousand years, why didn’t we uncover them sooner? Our guide confirmed my theory. See, until recently man had to work to live. You may say, “we still do.” It’s not the same. People literally had to work just to survive. When was the last time you only ate food you grew, cultivated, killed and cooked? How much of your wardrobe did you sew together? When was the last time you built your tools or even your house? See my point? There was some trade, but it’s not like it is today. Today, as long as we have access to our bank accounts we can pick up and move ANYWHERE and start a new life because we can buy things like clothes, a house, tools and food. We still have to work to live. Only now, we don’t have to work for EVERYTHING- only money.

By the 19^th century people could travel to “ancient” lands and dig because they could use their money to buy what they needed. They didn’t have to work at creating every meal, a shelter, tools and clothing. Because of industrialization and the ability to buy anything and everything we now have free time and money to do other things.

My mom has often made the statement that my grandparent’s generation has lived in probably the most revolutionary period in human technology. Being born right around 1920, they saw some of the largest leaps of change in human history. Let’s just focus on technology pertaining to travel.

The Ford Model T was the first real affordable automobile to the masses. It was in production from 1908-1927. I remember hearing some of my grandparents talk about when cars started to really come into their towns.

I was visiting with my last living grandfather 2 months ago. He lives in the same city he grew up in. One morning, we drove out to the old homestead and farm grounds he was raised on. He talked about how he used to go into town by having one of their animals pull their cart.

The Wright brothers had their first powered flights in 1903. My grandparents just barely missed the birth of aviation but they have surely seen its ramifications.

The Wright brothers had 4 powered flights on their first day. The first three flights each covered a distance of 120, 175 and 200 feet. The fourth and final flight of the day was for 852 feet. By the way, the average wingspan of a Boeing 747 is 200 ft!

I took this in the summer of 2007. This is where the Wright brothers had they first manned flights- Kill Devil Hills, NC.

The first human spaceflight was in 1961.
Just 8 years later on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon.

I want to throw in a small video here. It’s actually a teaser trailer for Christopher Nolan’s upcoming movie Interstellar. Christopher Nolan is the director of the Dark Knight trilogy, Inception and The Prestige- 5 of my favorite movies. I’ve just listed 5 of the 8 movies he has directed. Interstellar will be his 9^th movie. Simply put, the guy only knows how to make amazing movies- both financially and critically!

Nolan likes to keep things close to the chest. So this teaser appears to only really have one scene from the movie. The entire trailer is composed of news clips documenting mankind’s pursuit of aviation and space exploration (the movie appears to be about a new era of space exploration). Combine that with Matthew McConaughey’s narration and it is simply inspirational. If you don’t want to watch the trailer at least read the written narration below the video; it's integral to the rest of the post.

“We’ve always defined ourselves by the ability to overcome the impossible. And we count these moments…these moments when we dared to aim higher, to break barriers, to reach for the stars, to make the unknown, known. We count these moments as our proudest achievement. But we lost all that. And perhaps we’ve just forgotten that we are still pioneers and we’ve barely begun. And that our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us but our destiny lies above us.”

I love that video! Obviously you could make an a great spiritual application from the final line about “our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us but our destiny lies above us.” However, for the sake of finishing up this post and keeping with the theme or travel and exploration I want to redirect you to the line “And perhaps we’ve just forgotten that we are still pioneers and we’ve barely begun.”

We truly live in an unparalleled time! I traversed nearly the entire length of Greece by van in about 6 hours! Don’t forget to marvel at what we consider commonplace now!

I really hate flying. Not because I fear flying but because I have to sit on a transatlantic flight for about 9 hours at a time. It seems like forever! However, it’s a small sacrifice that affords me the ability to travel to far away lands in a fraction of the time!

Whenever I become fatigued with travel I just think, “The Apostle Paul would have LOVED to be able to travel so quickly to places all over the Earth!” I can make his month long journeys in just a few hours! In fact, you can get almost anywhere in the world within 2 days. Isn’t that amazing? And when Paul got to a new place, he had to support himself in some way. Now we can show up with a backpack and a credit card and do anything!

I’ve read Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years a couple of times. He has quite a few lines I’ve underlined in my Kindle edition. The following is a favorite of mine. To give you some context: much of this book is Miller talking about how he biked (that’s bicycle) across America. This is one of the epiphanies he had from that experience.

“When you fly across the country in an airplane the country seems vast, but it isn’t vast. It’s all connected by roads one can ride a bike down. If you watch the news and there’s a tragedy at a house in Kansas, that guy’s driveway connects with yours, and you’d be surprised how few roads it takes to get there.” Miller, Donald (2009-08-26). A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: How I Learned to Live a BetterStory (p. 238). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

Miller understands something I am realizing more and more each day: the world is not as vast and disconnected as you might want to think. Roads and airplanes bring us together and make it easier to see and explore new places. And that “perhaps we’ve just forgotten that we are still pioneers and we’ve barely begun.”

By the way, less than a month from now, I’m going to have to travel all the way back up to Northern Greece one day and then back home the next. However, it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make! You see, this group of HUGers has decided to hike Mt. Olympus and I’m joining them for my first hike up the mountain home of the mythological Greek gods. I’m excited! It’s time to be a pioneer once more.

Do you remember at the beginning when I said my parents divided the country up to 5 sections to visit by car? I listed each trip we went on and said that I’ve been to every state, by car, east of the Rockies. Did you notice something off? The list ended with the number 4. We never made the West Coast trip. Katie went on to college and life just got in the way.

In college, my friends and I used to talk about how we planned to take a road trip to California after graduation. We talked about this for years! But, I left college early to live in Greece and now these friends have jobs, some are married and one even had a baby just a few weeks ago! Once again life got in the way. However, this December I’m hoping to go to California! And if not December then sometime within the next year. In a previous post, I mentioned that my dad and I like to take trips together when I’m home. For years I’ve lobbied for a trip to California but it’s just never come to fruition. This year I have a new/specific motivation. But that aside, I’m ready to explore new places. The opportunity and means to travel are there; I just have to keep reminding myself “we are still pioneers!”

Just some bonus pictures!