Why a Blog About the Gifts of Adventure?

My understanding of the true nature of adventure came to me at about 9,000 feet, somewhere over Nebraska. I was huddled in the navigator’s station of a meticulously restored World War II B-17 bomber, dressed in all the long underwear, wool sweaters and socks I could layer on myself, wrapped in a sleeping bag I’d dragged out of the back of the airplane, and I was still colder than I’d ever been in my life.
I’d actually worked very hard to wrangle a seat on board the restored bomber for its ferry flight from a museum in Minnesota to California. This despite the fact that I knew the flight was going to take place in the middle of winter. And despite the fact that I also knew, from painful first-hand experience, that Minnesota did winter like few other places on Earth. But with my rose-tinted view of adventure at the time—and sitting in the comfort of my nice, heated living room—the weather seemed a minor factor. This trip was going to give me a chance to touch the past in high-flying, Walter Mitty style—to live out a romantic adventure few people ever have the opportunity to experience.
So filled with the enthusiasm of Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, Edmund Hillary and all the great explorers, I packed joyfully for the journey. The trip would be magical. It would be memorable. And it would be … a grand adventure.
But as I sat shivering in the sub-zero skies over Nebraska, I found I wasn’t thinking about adventure, magic or any poetic connections with the past. My mind was far more focused on thoughts of hot coffee, a long vacation in the sub-tropics, and even a peculiar sense of longing for my heated, comfortable living room back home. I was also thinking some highly unkind thoughts about the authentic but hollow machine gun barrels mounted in the nose section, which were now blasting sub-zero air on me at 150 miles an hour.

“Whoever touted all the wonders of adventure,” I muttered to myself as I looked around for some rags to stuff in the offending gun barrels, “neglected to mention how ungodly uncomfortable the stupid stuff is.”
It’s a truth I’ve had cause to remember on many occasions since. Twenty years ago, I quit a safe and successful corporate career to become a pilot and an adventure writer. In the ensuing years, as if that original cliff leap wasn’t enough, my flying and story assignments have taken me across six continents, from 120 feet below sea level to 70,000 feet above the planet … and have landed me in more uncertain and uncomfortable situations than any truly sane person would choose or endure.
I’ve found myself flying relief supplies into a civil war, scrambling for footing with a crampon failure high in the Alps, bailing out of a blimp caught in a dust-devil, and stranded on a glacier wearing only a light jacket, shorts, and tennis shoes … just to name a few. And that doesn’t even get into the everyday discomforts that come with piloting small airplanes across wide distances and terrains.  Or, for that matter, the equally uncomfortable pressure and uncertainty that comes with having to find work as a writer, or making enough money to make ends meet.
HOWEVER.
All of those experiences have also taught me a tremendous amount—about both surviving uncertainty and the gifts of adventure. And if I keep agreeing to new adventures, and keep trying to forge my own path through the woods instead of following someone else’s, it’s because I’ve discovered that the gifts of adventure and charting your own course in life—with no map and no guide to help you, but also no limits to where you can go—far outweigh the discomforts.
As an editor at FLYING magazine, I’ve spent the past 10 years chronicling some of those lessons, gifts and experiences in a monthly column. But adventure goes far beyond aviation, and a magazine column with a publishing lead-time of 90 days can’t be highly interactive or responsive to comments or world events. So in an effort to expand the conversation and keep it more current and lively, I’ve leaped off yet another cliff and founded this site and blog. Simple, to start with. But expect more diverse content, voices, and links to appear as time goes on.
 Stay tuned ….