Most Memorable Life Experiences and Adventures: A Grateful Look Back

A personal letter about the most memorable life experiences and adventures that made me who I am — and why the best is absolutely still to come.

Originally wrote August 10, 2012

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When I sit down and think about the most memorable life experiences and adventures I’ve collected over the years, I am genuinely overwhelmed — with gratitude, with laughter, and occasionally with mild disbelief that all of this actually happened to one person. These are the moments that shaped my career, my character, my relationships, and my understanding of what a full life actually looks like. Here, in no particular order, are the ones that stand out most.

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The Most Memorable Life Experiences That Started It All

Going to Guadeloupe at thirteen was absolutely not what I wanted for my birthday. I wanted new clothes. What I got instead was two weeks in Guadeloupe with my sister Michele and a fifty-something guardian, and it turned out to be one of the coolest trips of my entire life. The waterfalls. My first champagne — no age limit, not that it mattered. Madonna on the tape deck. My first real boy crush. A bull in a field. Clubs and disco dancing and water so clear it didn’t look real. That trip belongs at the very top of any list of most memorable life experiences, and I will be thanking my dad for it forever.

Having my two boys sits at the absolute center of my most memorable life experiences and adventures — full stop. Both pregnancies were completely different: one a week late, the other planned to the minute. One with a six-week maternity leave, the other with approximately one hour. One ended with food from Chef Ken Vedrinski; the other with whatever the hospital was serving after eight straight hours of the Food Network during labor. Both ended with tears, amazement, love, and the most precious human beings I will ever hold. I loved every single minute of it.

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Once-in-a-Lifetime Moments Among My Most Memorable Adventures

Raising the Hunley is one of those experiences that exists in a category completely by itself. It happened because of my dad, and not just being present — being on one of only two boats positioned right there as they pulled that Confederate submarine from the water where it had rested for more than a century. Surreal is not a strong enough word. I spent two hours on the phone with the Today Show producers hoping for an interview. We got bumped. That was entirely their loss. The moment that submarine broke the surface felt like fireworks going off, whether they did or not.

The SIIS Southern Food Road Trip with Randi Weinstein and Sara Donahue is one of my most memorable life experiences and adventures, hands down — ten-plus days of pure, ridiculous, delicious joy. From Atlanta with our cabbie Mike, to honky-tonking in Nashville, to the Garage Bar in Birmingham, to the Oxford square, to Memphis in May hanging with Peg Leg Porker — it was the trip of all trips. Those two are the perfect traveling companions, and I cannot wait to do it again.

The 1994 FIFA World Cup is the experience that, looking back, prepared me for everything I do professionally today. Being selected as one of two interns for the position, I got a front-row seat to what was then — and remains — one of the largest sporting events on the planet when the USA last hosted. Playing Striker the mascot in a grocery store. Assisting Andrew Shue. Waving to an ABC Good Morning America helicopter camera crew from the roof of City Hall in Orlando. Planning social events for staff and committees across the tournament. Every single moment was a pinch-me experience, and all of it laid the groundwork for what came next.

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The Adventures That Defined My Career Among My Most Memorable Experiences

The South Carolina Aquarium Amazon exhibit opening is the event I am most proud of from my time there, and it belongs on any list of most memorable life experiences I have organized professionally. I tried to get Jeff Probst from Survivor for the event — settled instead for a torch run through the streets of Charleston with a dozen local celebrities, ending with Mayor Joseph Riley as the final runner, lighting the main torch in Liberty Square before thousands of schoolchildren dressed in handmade Amazon animal costumes. Bands, dance troupes, dignitaries, statewide media — it was one of the largest events I had ever executed, and it went perfectly. What a way to leave a place.

The Charleston Wine + Food Festival is, without question, the most significant of all my memorable life experiences and adventures — professional or otherwise. If you had told me nine years ago that I would be running one of the top culinary festivals in the country, I would have laughed. What started in a Home Team office, moved to my house, then a board member’s space, then a classroom at Trident’s Palmer Campus — and grew into seven full-time staff members, 85 events in a single weekend, nearly $9 million in annual economic impact, and a platform that helped spur three consecutive James Beard Award winners in Charleston. The friends made, the experiences shared, the city celebrated — this is how I want to spend my life. I love Charleston and everyone who makes it extraordinary: the chefs, the farmers, the artisans, the beverage professionals, the volunteers, the writers, the hotel owners, the politicians, the historians. All of you make my life better, and I live for the next year to celebrate it all over again.

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The Wonderfully Chaotic Moments That Round Out My Most Memorable Adventures

Theyka and Jermaine Husser’s wedding was one of the most unique and special wedding experiences of my life — events running an hour or two behind schedule, a dry reception that was a genuine first for me, and strutting down the aisle to Barry White in a plaid pink dress with hot pink rhinestone shoes I eventually had to retire. I felt completely loved and completely myself. That combination is rare and worth celebrating.

The Amtrak train rides — particularly the year my dad, Jacques, Jack, and I took the train to New Orleans — are among my most memorable life experiences for reasons that are difficult to fully explain in a public forum. We were celebrating before the train left the station and maintained that commitment admirably throughout. Jack required an escort from the station to the hotel, which set the tone beautifully for the entire trip. The people you meet in the bar cart. The people you meet.

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The best is absolutely yet to come — and after a life full of these most memorable experiences and adventures, that is saying something.

With love and a full passport of gratitude, Angel

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Learn more about Angel Holmes and everything she’s passionate about at sipindipity.com/angel-holmes.