I was having a hard time getting the Story Map Journal customization to work, it turned out to be an issue where I had been using the developer version of the distribution, where I really needed the prebuilt download, on the same Story Map Github download page.

As mentioned in my Las Vegas trip post, I created a custom version of ArcGIS Story Maps Journal to match the styling of my website, and added a little javascript code to have readable URL variables.

The current color theme of my website was created using color.adobe.com using an image I took in Brooklyn of graffiti, seen here:

All of the colors were edited in the section that ESRI designates as where users can customize the CSS.

The Javascript I added was just a few lines, the first is just to grab the URL variables.

function getQueryVariable(variable)
		{
			   var query = window.location.search.substring(1);
			   var vars = query.split("&");
			   for (var i=0;i<vars.length;i++) {
					   var pair = vars[i].split("=");
					   if(pair[0] == variable){return pair[1];}
			   }
			   return(false);
		};
		
		var appLookup = {
				"WesternTrip":"1e9f18cdb9a84fa4b1d2b49290778e33",
				"Benelux2018":"8c7dbbdecdb245e6b77b9f40dae5c1a7",
				"VoyageursPlanning": "340c3fe509ed4fe3b888d029283a1126", 
				}