The adventure of life (perhaps a note to self)

Adventure and the pursuit of happiness isnt always full of fantastic views and smooth trails. A lot of preparation goes into backpacking and bicycle touring, and a lot of training and equipment is dedicated to the "what if" factor of adventuring. You dont always expect to use it but things such as first aid and emergency survival techniques are sometimes used. And beyond that even, things that dont make your event an emergency, but just add to a level of discomfort. These are all things that can really get to your head. A persistant rain that causes mud to get all over everything, a headwind that puts your mileage below your average mark, a cold front that brings unexpected low temperatures when you figured a summer bag would do for the trip, noticing an unusually large amount of unused gear that is weighing you down, mosquitoes... do these things take away from the enjoyment of the trip? Perhaps in the moment, but when remembered these things add to the stories you tell your friends. We wear those hardships as a badge of courage, and though while possibly slightly annoyeddurring the trip, in retrospect the story often makes it sound worse than it actually was. My point is that no adventure is ever perfect, sometimes things go wrong, sometimes things just arent perfect, sometimes things can be a little annoying. But we learn to recognize these trailside hardships and love them for what they will become. I have hiked through the mountains of Georgia, backpacked across the Florida Prairies, bicycle toured through most of central Florida's rail trails over hundreds of miles, and have done some canoe camping through out the area as well. What I remember about those trips are the suprises, and way in which I handled them. I am proud of my triumphs, though they came out of diversity. In this same token, I cannot help but look at life in the same light. I am getting to the point where I can recognize a crisis in real life and conquer those challenges with the same perspicacity as I would reaching an unexpected river crossing or a flat tire on the road. We have our doldrums in adventure and life is the greatest adventure of them all. If we can learn how to truely tackle these annoyances with fervor and tenacity instead of beat down by the lack of scenery we can come to truely appreciate this adventure we call life.
(In the spirit of its motivational poster like bantering i figured I would include some of my own motivational scenery shots to go along with the blog post... :) call me a geek if you will )