Right before I left on my recent transcontinental flying adventure, one of my editor friends and colleagues sent me an email saying that the trip sounded really fun and relaxing. Probably important to note here is that said editor friend is not a pilot. But even so.
“Wow,” I thought as I read the email. “That’s really interesting, that someone would see the process of flying a small airplane across an entire continent as really relaxing.” Rewarding, yes. Exciting, for sure. But relaxing? That’s not a word that springs instantly to mind when I think of any adventure I’ve ever undertaken.
But it got me thinking. At several points along the trip, other pilot friends texted or called to say they hoped we were having fun, or that the trip was fun. And each time, I’d had to stop and think before answering. Because while a vacation is designed to be non-stop fun and relaxing, an adventure is a much more complex combination of experiences.
Did we have fun on the trip? Of course we did. And lots of moments along the way were very, very funny. (Some of which you probably had to be there to appreciate.) There was the urban assault vehicle we were given as a rental car in South Dakota. The bowling alleys disguised as hotel rooms we got in Oregon. The truly bizarre-looking lava field formations we saw from the air in Idaho. The acres-upon-acres-of-really-obscure consignment junk we stumbled on at Granny’s Attic in Billings, Montana. Connor’s 45-second swim in a frigid mountain lake at 10,000 feet on the way into Yellowstone, just so he could say he did it. The “find the weirdest town name in this region” game we played as we flew over the Midwest. (My personal favorite, for the record, was Nevada, Iowa, just because of the “Who’s On First” dialog I could imagine it leading to: “Where are you from?” “Nevada.” “Where’s that?” “Iowa.” “So you’re from Iowa?” “Right.” “I thought you said Nevada.” “I did.” “So which is it?” Nevada. Iowa.” “Make up your mind!”)
But adventure also includes far more challenge than vacations. And challenging conditions and events are not generally what I’d call fun. Wrestling the airplane through day after day of turbulent air was not particularly fun. Dealing with a potential cylinder problem in the mountains and an electrical failure in flight was not fun. Struggling to get airborne in the downdrafts of the Allegheny Mountains was not fun. Gusty crosswind landing after gusty crosswind landing was not really that much fun.
Not that I’m complaining. It’s just that I’ve never gone into an adventure thinking it’s going to be “FUN” in the easy, “fun in the sun” sense. I take on adventure because … well, because of many things. But mostly because many of the experiences available to you on an adventure simply can’t be found anywhere else. Yes, Connor and I could have driven across the country with far less stress. But we wouldn’t have had the same perspective on the beauty of the classic, anvil thunderstorm clouds we passed, the mountain passes we navigated, or even the same shared satisfaction of having surmounted all those not particularly fun bits successfully and safely. There is also a vitality to life in the midst of a challenging adventure, where your skills are tested and the outcome of every day is unknown, that is distinctly different from anything you experience on a more relaxing and predictable vacation.
Before one of my trips across the continent, a number of years ago, a pilot friend said to me, “Remember, Lane—sometimes you have to step back and remind yourself that you’re having fun.” It’s true, of course. It’s easy to get so caught up in the tasks and challenges of the moment that you can lose sight of the fact that what you’re experiencing at that moment is not just challenging or busy. Even on the ground, you sometimes have to remind yourself that you’re actually having fun in the midst of a busy day or life.
But when it comes to adventure, I think the problem is that “fun” is far too simplistic a description for such a complex endeavor. Yes, adventure is fun. At times. But it’s also many other things, including scary, challenging, exciting, educational, vivid, energizing, funny, stressful, uncertain, uncharted, unexpected, surprising, and rewarding. All of which is what makes adventure so incredibly valuable and memorable.
Is adventure fun? Perhaps the answer I should have given to all my friends who asked was, simply, “You know … ‘fun’ doesn’t begin to describe it.”
Great post… sort of reminds me of the “Fun Scale” described here in a funny blog post by climber Kelly Cordes:
http://kellycordes.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/the-fun-scale/
“It doesn’t have to be fun to be fun.”
I completely agree. When people say they’re going on vacation and their only plans are to lie on the beach, I think to myself, “why would you want to use valuable vacation time and travel dollars for that?” There is usually enough downtime forced upon you by the logistics of an adventure to provide “relaxation.” But it’s the vitality, as you say, of an adventure that makes the stress of the adventure worth undertaking. I think of this as a different kind of stress than the stress of the daily grind, because in an adventure, your choices are mostly under your own control, not dictated to you by a boss or the perception of your peers. You are captain of your own ship. It is a very liberating kind of stress. But relaxing? Not in the conventional sense.