Hi, my name is Sienna. I’m 22-years-old and I’m currently a Junior in college studying advertising and public relations. I live in Michigan and have for the last seven years. Before that I lived in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (or at least that is the nearest city to my hometown there). I’ll talk about my life in Australia as well as all about moving to the US in later posts, but for now, I moved to the US so that my dad could continue to work for General Motors, a major automotive manufacturer. I have a boyfriend, Doug, whom I have been dating for 3.5 years now. We are long-distance when I am at school, but I always go home for summer and winter breaks.
My interests
I’ve been racing bikes since I was 5 years old. I started with BMX and later started racing cross country, then cyclocross, and most recently downhill and dual slalom. I currently have 4 bikes, and yes they all have names. My pride and joy is my 2022 Transition Scout that I built from the frame up last summer – but I’ll talk more about my bikes in other posts. Bikes will come up on this blog since they’re such a large part of my life and many of the adventures I have had are thanks to my cycling career.
I love cars, and while it was only in the last 7 or 8 years that I really fell in love with them, I believe it was inevitable that I would. I grew up in Holden Commodores and Utes, which both my parents loved to drive. My dad has worked for GM in some capacity since I was a baby, and I even have projects from Kinder and Prep (pre-school and kindergarten if you’re American) that say “I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up, but I want to work at Holden like my Daddy.” Since moving to the US, I have had a 1990 Camaro Iroc-z and now I currently own a 1986 Chevrolet Corvette. Cars will be a large part of the blog, but not the only part.
I love traveling, and obviously, by the title of this blog, I love adventure. I grew up traveling all across Australia and in the last 6.5 years (plus one family vacation before we moved to the US) I’ve visited 25 of the 50 US states. I hope to visit all 50 by the time I’m 30 as well as travel overseas a few more times to places like England, France, Japan, South Korea, and many other places. Of course, being from Australia I hope to be able to go back every few years as well, however, I haven’t been back since moving to the US. As much as I love to travel, I do also enjoy my time at home, I’m not the kind of person to travel for an entire year.
This is a pretty standard interest, but I taught myself guitar and keyboard. I’ve been to seven concerts (about to be eight!), my first being when I was 11. I’m not into the same music as most girls my age, or even most guys. In order of first concert to most recent; Weezer, Bliss n Eso, The Wombats, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Griswolds, Weezer (yes again, and The Wombats were the starting act too), and in 2019 before COVID-19 I saw Hilltop Hoods. If you’re American there’s a good chance you only know two of those bands, as three are Australian and one is British. Music probably won’t come up a lot on this blog but I thought it was worth noting.
I love horses and cows and so many other animals. I’ve always wanted to learn how to ride a horse, and last year I finally got myself some lessons. Unfortunately, I’ve since stopped because I’m just too busy between school and work, but I hope that once I graduate school and have a little more time and money I can return to taking lessons. For now, I’ll stick to my trail rides once or twice a year.
My boyfriend got me into motorbikes. I mean I figure I might’ve tried them eventually, much to my parent’s dismay. I don’t have my own bike, so I ride his. I learned on one of Doug’s old enduros (this is a type of motorbike) and then last year we both got our endorsements to ride on the road. While it’s not my favorite thing to do, it is something we can do together, and one of our deals was that if I learn to ride he’ll start mountain biking with me. Of course, this deal was way back when we started dating and now he loves mountain biking too!
That’s me. I’m sure I’m missing a lot but that is a good start. Now we can cover what Driven Adventure is.
Driven Adventure is a blog that I am going to use to record all the adventures in my life, and maybe down the road some of my viewers can submit blog posts of their adventures. To me, an adventure is any new, or old, experience that is exciting, scary, hazardous, or all of the above. Despite my love of cars, driven does not refer to car-enabled adventures. It means having a reason to go on an adventure, be it an escape, an opportunity, or just switching things up.
Driven Adventure is pushing forwards on an exciting, and sometimes hazardous, experience.
I live with three roommates while at school, and when I first met one of them, she called me a homebody. We barely knew each other at this point, but we had all been talking about the tattoos we have or want to get. Now, I only have one and it’s on my right side near my ribs. Its two arrows, one vertical and one horizontal, and written into the line of the horizontal one is the word adventure.
This tattoo was significant for me because, during my freshmen year of college, I went to a different university where I was on their cycling team. During a dual slalom race, I crashed and lacerated my liver, kidney, and adrenal gland, all on my right side. Without the adventures I’ve been on in my life I wouldn’t have made it to that position, and despite that crash, I still ride and jump and do downhill for fun. Nine months after that crash I spent a week riding bikes down mountains in Colorado with no more fear than I had before the crash.
When my roommate called me a homebody it made me a little mad, because yeah, I love being home, but I wouldn’t love it if I didn’t get to leave and have adventures. That’s why I want to note all the adventures I’ve had and will continue to have on this blog. I have had an amazing life so far, full of adventures and challenges. If you want to hear about them and many more I hope to have then make sure you sign up for our newsletter/mailing list so you get notified when I post a new blog!
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