Adventure alive and well in the west

Recently, my family and I made the huge decision to pack up our posessions and head west. Well, north...... and west anyways. After four years in the United States Air Force and a year and a half sabbatical in my north Texas hometown the spirit of adventure was in my veins. As if I hadn't gotten enough in Iraq and New Orleans. There is more to the story than there seems. When I made the announcement that we would be moving across country the mircomanaging forces in our lives immediately spun into motion, attempting to acertain the rationale behind such an audatious plan. "Oh...you have gotten a job offer have you?" one would inquire. "Amie is sick of the south and is ready to move back north (she is from Wisconsin)" another would speculate. It seemed that everyone whom we encountered gave thier best effort to pin us down into some pragmatic reasoning. However, none was there to be found.

          One might call me idealistic, but I would correct with "Outside the box" for many of my so called eccentricities. You see, the real reason for such a drastic move at such a pivotal point in both our daughters development, and our marriage was neither pragmatic, nor idealistic, but artistically inspired. What is pragmatic of me is to realize that we live in a time and place where even the poor, with enough motivation, can concoct an amazing adventure in their minds and with just the right ambition make that adventure a reality that will be the cornerstone of their memories for generations. The problem it seems, is that we as a culture have become obsessed with security. Now I am a fond reader of Maslow and I realize where security lies in the hierarchy but my retort to that argument is that Maslow never defined security as a 9-5 with healthcare and 401K. The truth is, the civilizations in which we have been blessed offer up a very secure platform within themselves that is conducive to both personal security as well as adventure. Lets face it, anyone who wants work bad enough in this country can get it, we all can save our pennies and nickles for adventure funds, our violent crime rate is obnoxiously low (whats an adventure tale without a little danger), and you really, really have to try to starve these days. So security is there, but its become an obsession; an inherent barrier, if you will, to one of the most important elements that made the west the mythical caricature of the spaghetti western. Our adventurous spirit.

 

              So thats what it was that they did not know, a calling from somewhere deep within. A whisper from afar beckoning me to the mountains.  I grew up on westerns. The whole good guy beats bad guy in a dramatic faceoff at high noon, and in the end rides into the sunset with the girl who played the piano in the saloon. However, growing up in Texas there was one western in particular that envoked such a whirlwind of emotion that you'd almost tear up at the onset of the theme song. Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, was an iconic piece of literature in my upbringing, and in 1989 the mini series aired and millions of rednecks the world over had their equivalent of "The greatest story ever told." I still remember a mechanic shop back home that had a sign up on the door envoking Augustus McRae's saying for Hat Creek Cattle Company "We don't rent pigs." So you see, to me it was very natural that, when placed in the tough situation that Balad Iraq offered me, I would retreat back into the familiar happy place offered to by McMurtry's book series. All and all I spent about five months in Iraq, and in that time I re-read all four of the McMurtry books twice.

 

             So you are probably asking "Where the heck is this headed?" Well, it is heading in the same place that the book Lonesome Dove was heading. Texas cowboys (Aaron my brother, Jason my lifelong friend, and yours truly), along with a beautiful dame (my wife and my twin daughters) set out on a drive (they had cattle, we had furniture) from Texas to Montana for the sake of seeing that country; as Woodrow Call would say "Before all the bankers and lawyers get it." Though It now seems that the bankers and lawyers did indeed beat us to our destination. The cast of Lonesome Dove had horses and a wagon, we had a Cadillac and a wagon (if a budget rental truck is classified as a wagon).  We traveled through the same territories and crossed the same rivers as my high riding Texas Ranger heros. The Red, the Canadian, the Missouri, and the Yellowstone we crossed each one, yet thanks to the magical English art of "Bridge building" we were able to keep our clothes on. Which indeed was a good thing because the thought of Jason driving my Cadillac naked is a bit morbid. We made our stops in Ogalalla, The badlands, and Miles City exactly to script. And though we were spared having to hang horse "Theef's", bury snakebite victims, and engage in battle with hostile indians, we had our hardships. We were robbed by remorseless bandits known as energy companies at every fuel station, we lost our way in blinding road construction, and we went on a high speed chase for the nearest vacant motel room in (little did we know then) completely deserted eastern Montana.

 

              Finally as the day broke on our 5th day and the morning mist cleared... we were there; our new homestead, nestled in a familiar green valley, just beneath the rimrocks. Now this all might seem a bit corny and 19th century to you, but are you a security addict? I now have portraits painted into my mind to the tune of the Lonesome Dove theme song that will inspire me all of my life. In this age of technology and information we all have so many possibilities to explore that are only a click away, this is true. But its not the sight that makes the adventure, hell you can even throw in a bit of sound and an action packed gaming experience and it still simply will not do. You need the full experience of sight, sound, smell, taste, and feel to begin to create a work of art in your mind that is truly lasting. Then you throw in a bit of danger and..... Well like they say "No risk no reward." Adventure is alive and well here in the west only its assleed in the halls of our minds. We only need to break free of our proverbial bondage and reach out and grab it and make it our new reality.