adventure

"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered." Such reads the unattributed quote on one of my friend's facebook page. Oh, yes... Adventure! That has always been a magic word for me. Everyone has some magic word that'll motivate them toward one choice over another. Mine is "adventure."

When I was 17, that one word led me to choose the Navy over the Air Force. Why? The U.S. Navy's slogan at the time was :"It's not just a job, it's an adventure." How could I resist? Even though the initial contract was for six years (Advanced Electronics Field), I saw this choice as my opportunity to see the world, to travel, to meet new people... to have adventures! And I most assuredly did, including many that I did NOT share with Mama in my chatty letters home. Hey, some things need to stay where they happened, ya know, especially when in your early 20's. Especially when a SAILOR in your early 20's. Good times, very... good... times.

I had some incredible adventures during that time. Hanging out in Taipei with the owner of the tea shop behind the hotel... and going one evening to a movie ("The Gods Must Be Crazy", of all things!) and some beautiful gardens with her nephew. Eating orange beef at the Stoned Crow, an Australian restaurant, in Hong Kong, then wandering the streets, stopping at the temples along the way, the city lit up like a Christmas tree. Riding a local passenger ship, at night, back from Taiwan to Okinawa and seeing the jewels cast up in the black velvet sky. Driving from Pensacola, Florida, to my first duty station in the Panama Canal Zone, taking the Pan-American highway down Central America with the trucks and the cyclists and the mule-drawn wagons. Having the best tan ever at Playa del Diablo, just past Fort Gulick on the Atlantic side of Panama. Cruisin' up and down the California coast from San Diego to San Francisco, passing La Jolla and San Juan Capistrano and open desert.

Those were so very long ago, it seems, another lifetime ago. But I've had other adventures since then, just as memorable, some more so, some in my own back yard. I live for adventures, for trying new things, new places. I'll be off for a new adventure the first weekend in February: off to Charleston to hear Elliott and the Untouchables do their fabulous blues! I can hardly wait!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r6Z7noLcl0&feature=related