Topic: Adventure

I have never thought of myself as a particularly adventurous person.  My father, mother, sister, and brother were always the people I admired most for their adventurous spirits, but I considered myself more like Ferdinand.  I liked to stay close to home, spend time with my family, and was painfully shy prior to the age of ten.  I’ve never completely outgrown my shy nature though most people are surprised at that piece of information because I also love to talk and socialize.  I wanted to be like the rest of my family and aspired to take risks and set off on my own, but I was so much more content just to feel safe and comfortable within the environs of my childhood.

 

Still, my brother and sister continued to encourage me to get out and see the world, and they were role models of their words.  K went to several different summer camps to play violin, and went on an exchange to France for a year.  My brother was a legendary  risk-taker.  He came close to death several times in his life, but always managed to find his way out of scrapes and return home once again.  I admired my brother deeply and wanted to emulate him, but I just couldn’t find it in myself to head out on my own adventure until the year I graduated from high school.   That year my brother was living in Wyoming working on an oil rig.  The money was terrific, and he was putting himself through university with the money he earned.  He invited me to come out and join him for the summer, so for my graduation present, I received a bus ticket to travel to meet up with my brother.

Even the bus trip was an eye-opener.  It was a 48 hour trip, and I met two European travelers, a 15 year old girl returning to Casper, Wyoming who was already a mother, and whose child had been abducted by her husband (who in turn was  probably all of 17), an alcoholic who proceeded to drink his way across the nation, and many other colorful characters.  It was like something out of a John Steinbeck novel except that I was in the midst of it.

 I ended up in Rawlins, Wyoming where my brother met my bus. He took me to his trailer, which was parked in the middle of nowhere.  There were antelopes, coyotes, a long stretch of nothingness as far as the eye could see, and a small café/bar/gas station. This was the only sign of civilization for 20 miles.  Even after those 20 miles, there was only a small town of perhaps 200 inhabitants.  People lived hard, drank hard, and aged early.

This was adventure!