Today’s guest post is part of a blog exchange event I’m participating in, courtesy of 20 Something Bloggers. The topic we were given for the post to exchange with our fellow 20-something-year-old bloggers was “Summer Vacation.” With that in mind, today’s guest post is by LaNeshe from Nesheaholic.com. LaNeshe, take it away!

I love to travel, and that is 100% due to the awesome summer vacations my Grandmother took my sister and I on as children. The most memorable one was our very first trip to Denver, Colorado.  We’re from Connecticut, and had never been off the east coast. This trip opened my eyes to the fact that there were so many different places throughout our country…and beautiful places at that.

Now, you’re probably thinking this awesome trip started once we got to Denver, but this is not the case. We took the train, all the way from Connecticut to Colorado. That is a THREE DAY RIDE on a train…and I loved every minute of it. My family didn’t have one of those fancy-smancy sleeper cars. We rode it out three days in regular seats. The train was our home.

A few of the highlights from the train ride were meals in the dining car and watching the country go buy on the observation deck of the double decker train called the California Zephyr. During one leg of the journey my family was seated in the wheelchair accessible car. This car had about 6 actual seats, and the rest was space for passengers with wheel chair. Lucky for us, there were no wheelchairs during our ride, so that big spacious car became a play room for all the kids on board!

Since the same group of people was on the train for days, there was a weird sense of trust between everyone, a trust they probably wouldn’t normally give to “strangers.” My grandmother let me hang out with a cowboy. This cowboy was carrying a large gun in his overhead compartment, and let me hang out with him in the bar car while he and other passengers played cards. To this day I still remember how cool it was to meet all those different people.

The ride was awesome, but being in Denver and the surrounding areas was just as great.  We visited Garden of the Gods, camped out at Yellowstone National Park, and took in the beauty of serenity of Denver. I saw geysers, hot springs and rock formations for the first time and had my first ever camping trip and ride on a speed boat.

This was my first big trip in life, and it fueled me with a love for travel and a need to see the new and beautiful places this world has to offer.

LaNeshe is an actress and arts marketer in Philadelphia. She blogs about beauty, media, marketing and everything in-between. You can check out her blog at Nesheaholic.com and follower her on twitter @Nesheaholic.