Why? Why Adventure?
- Lauren Herbine
- Aug 22, 2017
- 2 min read
If you've made it this far, you've asked yourself the same question I have: why did Bill Browne and six of his friends take off for the great unknown, in a bus that was guaranteed to break down... at age 16? And why did I follow? The short, obvious answer: it's fun. Not the playing soccer on a Fall day with your friends fun, or the eating ice cream on a beach fun, or even the riding a roller-coaster fun. Nope, it's the "I didn't sleep because the low was 98 last night" fun, and the "Can my car make it up this mountain with this much gas?" fun, and the hiking through altitude headaches kind of fun. The best kind of fun, if you ask me. It might not make that much sense unless you've tried it. I'm not the most eloquent person out there, so I've decided to turn to experts on the subject: Terry and Renny Russell, free spirits and authors of On the Loose. I often thought of their musings during my trip.
"So why do we do it?
What good is it?
Does it teach you anything?
Like determination? invention? improvisation?
Foresight? hindsight?
Love?
Art? music? religion?
Strength or patience or accuracy or quickness or tolerance or
Which wood will burn and how long is a day and how far is a mile
And how delicious is water and smoky green pea soup?
And how to rely
On your
Self?"
"One of the best-paying professions is getting ahold of pieces of country in your mind, learning their smell and their moods, sorting out the pieces of a view, deciding what grows there and there and why, how many steps that hill will take, where this creek winds and where it meets the other one below, what elevation timberline is now, whether you can walk this reef at low tide or have to climb around, which contour lines on a map mean better cliffs or mountains. This is the best kind of ownership, and the most permanent.
It feels good to say 'I know the Sierra' or 'I know Point Reyes.' But of course you don't-what you know better is yourself, and Point Reyes and the Sierra have helped."
"We leave: part of ourselves.
We take: sand in our cuffs, rocks, shells, moss, acorns, driftwood, cones, pebbles, flowers,
Photographs.
But is the picture a tenth of the thing?
A hundreth?
Is it anything without the smell and salt breeze and the yellow warmth when the fog lifts?
Oh! but I got all that, too.
It is exposed forever on the sensitive emulsion sheet
Of my mind. "
All quotes from On the Loose by Terry and Renny Russell
