When you start off on an adventure living out of a van you don’t expect to find yourself at a wine tasting event with a handful of locals in Jackson, WY. But that’s the beauty of adventuring. Nothing turns out quite like you expect. Maybe receiving joy from situations that ebb and flow away from the original plan is isolated to certain personalities, I can’t say for sure. But what I can say, is that I love the unexpected, the unplanned for, the shifts, the changes, the last second decisions whether to turn right or left. That’s what adventuring is all about in my book.
I mean what are you suppose to do when you leave your only warm jacket 7 miles out in the Yellowstone wilderness and it drops to 20 degrees with snow covering your van less than a week later? Or what do you do when your van locks you out without food, water or warmth while you’re back in the sticks of Medicine Bow National Forest? What about when all the camping sites between Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park are all full, where do you sleep? What do you do when a two day stop in Bozeman, MT turns into two weeks? What do you do when you’re miles out in the desert land of Wyoming and your mountain bike decides to explode your second spare tube leaving you stranded? Or what do you do when you are miles away from your campsite back up in Shoshoni National Forest and the chain on your bike decides to break in two? What do you do?
But adventuring is not all about the unexpected problem or hurdles, sometimes it’s the unexpected blessing. What do you do when a guy working at the Dubois fly shop walks in, hands you a beer, and tells you to go check out the rodeo? What do you do when a random stranger tells you of a secret fishing stretch along the North Platte? What do you do when you meet a random Italian guy in the middle of a national forest who invites you to join him and his pup on a hike to a mountain top lake. What do you do when you’re invited to float and fish the Madison River on a friend of a friend of a friend’s drift raft and basically have a guided fly fishing trip offered to you? What do you do when people offer to let you use their showers and run a load of laundry while you’re in town? What do you do when a girl asks you if you want to climb to the roof of a downtown office building? What do you when a guy with “Salsa Man” printed across his shirt at a farmers market in Casper, WY asks you if you want to try his salsa that’s called “The Reaper”? What do you do when you’re invited to help bottle a batch of wine with the local winery? What do you do when you’re invited to a local hangout after last call at a bar in a town so small it doesn’t have a name?
When the door of adventure cracks open, don’t be afraid to push it wider and walk through into the unknown.
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