Surfing
I started surfing as a kid growing up up South Florida, but a detour to Michigan put that career on hold for a few years. I started again the summer after my freshmen year in college and became completely obsessed.
Going to school at Michigan State presented a few challenges to someone obsessed with surfing, so I took up surfing on the Great Lakes during the school year. A lot of people surf the Great Lakes now, but back then you had to be an amateur meteorologist with nerves of steel and a 6/5 wetsuit. I remember people looking at me like I was a lunatic driving through campus in a snowstorm with a shortboard strapped to my roof.
Surfing has been another great character-building experience for me because it's something that you can never really master, there's always headroom for improvement.... lots of it. Surfing has taken me all over the world, it's kept me active and healthy, it's tested my strength, it's tested my courage, and it's certainly put me in my place more than once.
I put together this map of all the spots that I've surfed over the years, as well as a few comments on some of the breaks.