Adventure by any other name

      Why is it that adventure for some people means exotic locations, beautiful women and pulse-pounding excitement but for me means pain and hospital trips? I once asked this question of a friend who replied, "It's obvious. You're not the hero. You're the comic relief."
      Ahh, it was clear to me then: That guy was no friend. So I didn't feel the least bit guilty about dating his girlfriend or those odd scratches that showed up on his Camaro that might have spelled "jerk."
      What prompted this question about adventure? you ask.
      Well, go ahead, ask.
      I'm waiting.
      All right, be that way. Now you'll never know that my roomie and I decided to take a day trip to Turner Falls Park on Labor Day and had a wonderful time except for the part when I nearly died on top of a mountain. Bet you feel sorry now, don't you?
      I can see that you do. Don't cry. Here's the story.
      I wanted to give my new digital camera a good workout. We only live a few dozen miles from Turner Falls Park so I suggested to my roomie that we drive down there and explore. We packed some sandwiches and robbed a bank to pay for a tank full of gasoline. And off we went.
      I expected the place to be crowded, but it wasn't. We wandered around the park as I took lots of photos. We found a picnic table beside a stream to eat lunch. As I ate a sandwich, I noticed the start of an old road on a hill. The road was closed off and hedged on both sides by rockwork that looked like that of a castle. So I suggested we walk up the road and see what was there. My imagination built an ancient abandoned house up there that just begged to be explored. My imagination needs to be horse-whipped.
      Up we went. My roomie is in great physical shape. That's why I occasionally hate him. He bounded up the mountain like a gazelle. I trudged up it. The road had been black-topped once, but the asphalt was broken into chunks. I had to watch my step. Fortunately my face was only inches away from the ground.
      Halfway up, I stopped to rest and suggested he go on up and see if what was there. I found shade, sipped my water bottle and tried to remember the signs of a heart attack. Time passed. I realized I wasn't going to die. Then I realized it had been a while and he hadn't returned. So I left him to die, drove his truck home and sold his belongings... No, I didn't. I started wearily climbing up the cliff.
      As I walked, my rotten imagination had him falling into a ravine, getting bit by a snake, being attacked by a bear (!) or ... and this was really good ... he found an old abandoned house except it wasn't abandoned. A crazy, evil man still lurked there ... This made me pause. That and the fact I had fallen. I didn't have a weapon, not even a knife. In fact the only thing I had with me was my water bottle. I immediately vowed to not go into the wilderness again without packing heat. For that matter, perhaps I'd bring a pack mule, too. That'd be nice. And then if you were lost and began to starve, you could eat the mule. Unless the mule got you first, of course.
      Eventually, and it took much longer to walk it than to tell it, the road became a small trail. No house. No roomie, either. I yelled for him. No answer. I was surrounded by scrub cedars, just tall enough to keep me from seeing very far. There was nothing for it but for me to go on.
      I drank some more water, swatted at the horse flies who had discovered what the mosquitoes already know -- I'm an insect IHOP -- and crawled on.
      As my tongue dragged the ground, I began to wonder what I could do should he be the captive of crazed mountain folk. I didn't even have the breath to sing -- which might seem an odd thing to think of, but I remembered reading about how when British explorer Horace Carter was lost in the jungle and was surrounded by cannibals, he began to sing loudly to scare them away. Naturally they killed and ate him, but they talked about him for years.
      The trail split at this point, and I realized I was on top of the mountain. At that moment, my roomie came wandering up the trail. He stopped, a horrified expression on his face.
      "What are you doing here?" he asked.
      "I got worried when you didn't come back," I panted.
      "The trail started going down the other side of the mountain," he said, looking at me closely. "It didn't lead anywhere. But I think we need to get you off this mountain. You're not looking so good."
      I turned and looked down the mountain and briefly considered starting life anew where I was. But I drank some water, threw up a bit, and then I was right as rain, other than the delirium and the lurching. Not me, I was fine, but the world kept lurching. Weird local earthquakes or something.
      But I made it back down with only a mild case of heat exhaustion. Perhaps not the wisest thing I've ever done, but hey, I made up it and back down. In fact, the only casualty of this was my roomie's nerves. That's what happens to gazelles. They're always nervous.
      Over the next few days, I'll be sharing more photos from that trip. I hope you enjoy them because adventure by any other name would still be as painful.