The word “adventure” conjures up fun and excitement, endless activities and wide-eyed happiness coupled with friendly unknowns.  And while this is true, it is true like most things concerning human life are true: partly.  In coffee shops around the world people sit sipping coffee and munching scones, talking about what they “would do” if given the chance; but they never do it.  Perhaps, the adventure is already alive, but waiting for us to act upon it.

In the fifty or so years that I have been alive I have travelled to some forty countries, lived in four states, travelled throughout the lower forty eight, been a truck driver, a musician, and a college teacher.  I have climbed mountains and trekked the Annapurnas in Nepal, eaten curry in Calcutta, and a Vietnamese sandwich in north and south Vietnam.  I have drank instant coffee in a cave high up on the sides of mountains in places that I can’t name and have believed that cup of coffee to be the best I’d ever had.  I have drank beer in more pubs than I can count in England and eaten Bratwurst in Germany, spaghetti dinners in Italy, drank Belgian beers in Belgium, meatballs in Sweden, and enjoyed the beaches in Denmark as well as wine in France and crabs in Norway.  I am a homesteading farmer and carpenter at present and those activities present me with even more adventures.

This is all to say that the adventures that I have experienced are life: there are good and bad times, boring times, scary times, frustrating and irritating times.  There are times when a cup of coffee at a well known coffee shop, surrounded by suburbanites in a “safe” neighborhood is an adventure and there are times when scaling a peak at 13000 feet is an adventure: I’ve tried both and while the feelings are different, they can both get interesting.

An adventure is carved out of the experiences that we have while living.  The only time we miss out on adventures is when we choose not to do something because we are afraid, or tired, or lazy.  Sometimes an adventure can be had sipping a cup of coffee and sometimes we need to put the cup down and do something.  The adventure starts when we know what to do and when to do it.