All I really need here is an adventure. I already have "bold" and "dashing" covered.
When you hear the word "adventure," the first thing that pops into your head is probably a setting. Whatever that setting may be, I would bet it's outside, under the open sky. And boy, today was the perfect day for being out under that sky - at least where I live.
In that spirit, I committed the first act of summer today. I mowed my lawn.
And it sucked. I hate cutting grass. It's quite possibly my least favorite thing in the entire world. Yet Jamie and I chose to buy a house with a yard as big as goddamn Ebbets Field. Or at least it seems that way when I'm mowing.
But I'm glad I did it. I've never mowed this early in the season before; I'm the guy who always waits until it's shin-high before I reluctantly drag the mower out of the shed. As much as I hate the activity of mowing itself, it was delightful to be outdoors in this weather; in fact, I stayed outside on the back porch and read a book for hours after the lawn was finished. And I have to admit - besides the early-season brown spots, the lawn looks pretty darn good now.
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| The My Daily Fortune Bird Mansion is still, sadly, vacant. |
I'm not going to pretend, however, that mowing my lawn is the adventure this fortune foretold. For that, I'm going to do something much more... uhm... fun. I'm going to go geocaching with my brother, Marty.
Marty has talked about geocaching in the past. Geocaching, if you've never heard of it, is "a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment."
It sounds cool based on that description from the geocaching website, but the way Marty describes it, it's much, much dorkier. It's a bunch of nerds with their Garmins and their pocket protectors walking around the forest looking for tiny boxes filled with trinkets. And if my brother participates in it, it's bound to be lame.
(Just kidding.)
But the more I think about it, maybe geocaching is cool. Basically, we're talking about hiking with a purpose. Any kind of hunt is always adventurous, even if that hunt only leads you to a small box in the middle of the woods. There's also a whole code of ethics and a surprisingly large community involved with this activity, which is cool. And I like the fact that you can take something from the box when you find it, but if you do you have to leave something behind. Hmm... I wonder what I could leave behind? Maybe a hermetically sealed snack for the next geocacher?
Now I'm kind of intrigued. I'm looking at the Wikipedia page about geocaching right now. It looks like a fun, normal hobby, and not nerdy at all. And here's a paragraph about how sometimes geocache sites are often stolen or vandalized by people who are unaware of the existence of the activity. Huh. Seems geocachers have a nickname for those folks:
"...Those not familiar with geocaching are called muggles, a term borrowed from the Harry Potter series of books..."
Oh god.
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