To Simply Adventure

Part 1-Introduction

Surgery, a Walk About, and Mushrooms…

If I were free to do whatever I could, I would see all the wild spots.  I think many of us have this same feeling and at times the yearning to be on an adventure can feel like an overwhelming sense of need.  The anticipation can be akin to the night before Christmas for the eager child; I know I have felt this the night before a long backpack or opening day of hunting season.  The months of planning: maps, books and articles read, the bow sighted in, or the weighing and sorting of gear, all lead up to the grand adventure.  Climbing Everest, hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, hunting African game, these are adventures I’ve read about and dream of.  I have yet to go on an adventure as such, but I have had my fair share of excursions that fit the bill of adventure.  Snow shoeing (attempted twice, not yet achieved) Crater Lake’s rim, backpacking 100 miles in Hell’s Canyon, mountaineering on Mt. Shasta and in the Sierra Nevada’s, and Rafting a section of the Deschutes River are some of the wonderful adventures I have had the privilege to be a part of.  And I want so many more adventures, but low and behold, life has gotten in the way of being fully immersed in the adventurous life for me.

Like many, I have what some may call a job.  I go to an office 5 days a week and do my job.  I must have this job, as many of us must.  While I know the necessity for working, I still have the overtly penetrating feeling that I must get out, and away, and adventure my life away.  My boss, (nor my wife and daughter) will not allow me a month off to backpack the Himalaya’s, nor will the lack of wages allow such an exuberant trip (maybe one of these days, if I may dream).  And while I do have my vacations in which I find adventure, it is not enough to keep me satiated throughout what I feel is much of the time a boring life.  So what can be done?  This is where the notion of a simple adventure comes to play.  Instead of a month away I may be engrossed in nature for an afternoon.  Instead of a hundred miles by foot I can enjoy a slow walk among the old growth.  Instead of a snow shoe I may sled with the kid and make grown-ass-man snow angels.  While the longer and more dream-worthy adventures may be only a few per year, I can still find some comfort in telling myself to do one thing: Simply Adventure.

This notion, to find adventure in little sections of time and place, is more of a method of thinking than anything.  When I am out on a local trail, or in the woods around my house, my eyes are everywhere, looking for plants, animal tracks, mushrooms, or even small bugs.  It is the wanting of learning about a mold I’ve never noticed before, or trying to recognize the song of the flycatcher high in the Sitka Spruce above my head.  The notion is curiosity and through adventure, even the smallest adventures, I find both my curiosity and my wanting of answers to be found.  

It is only recently that I have labeled my little jaunts by the creek behind our house, in the local forest, even under the house, or into my backyard, as an “Adventure”.  However, it has been something that has simmered in the back of my mind for a while now.  In his book “The Path; a One Mile Walk Through the Universe”, Chet Reymo describes a walk he makes almost every day, of a mile from his home to his job.  In the book he discusses what he sees on his walks, which brings the writing into an historical account, much of the time based on the nature around him.  This, a way of looking at the landscape and the objects, living or otherwise, as an invitation to the exploration of history, natural history, self reflections, and of desiring further knowledge, is what a simple adventure is all about.  I highly recommend this book to anyone that is interested in nature and nature writing.

While Chet writes about a mile, I hope to write about smaller areas at times.  A one-foot by one-foot section of mossy forest floor can be a sight of much activity, if one only pays attention.  As well, I like to write of the afternoons spent foraging with the family, or the loop drive on backroads I take looking for elk and deer.  These are but a few of the simple adventures I like to share, and not because I feel they are anything special as far as adventure goes.  Rather, I feel they are important for the emotions they can induce and the thoughts that come when something small reminds us of the larger picture.

I think this thought process became apparent to me in November of 2023.  I had been fighting diverticulitis, an inflammation of the lower intestines.  After a visit and stay in the hospital for a perforation, or small hole, and swelling in my lower intestine, I had to have a surgery.  The surgery, which name escapes me, took 6 inches of my colon (my wife and I joke that I now have a semi-colon).  The surgery is a major surgery, and I had an extended time off of work to recover at home.  Part of recovery, one of the most important parts according to my surgeon, was to walk several times a day, every day.  This started the day of my surgery, in the hospital, and continues to this day. 

The walks were at times slow and painful, especially with the three-inch incision below my belly button.  Walking was cumbersome because I had a machine hooked into the surgical wound by a hose.  This machine, which I had to have with me for three weeks after surgery, used negative air pressure to help the wound heal, to keep fluid retention down, and apparently it helped to annoy the hell out of me as it was always in the way.

On my daily walks I would carry the machine like a purse strapped around my shoulder.  While it was at first an inconvenience, it soon became a hindrance because it was November, and there were mushrooms growing.  Each time I would kneel down to look at a mushroom the damn thing would swing and hit me in the chin.  I could have readjusted it to not be able to do this, but I was distracted by the mushrooms I was seeing on my walk.

Behind my house on the Oregon Coast is a gravel drive that goes to several other properties.  The area is a mix of grassy, manicured fields, a couple swampy areas that hold water all year round, and forested areas with Sitka Spruce, Red Alder, and Douglas Fir.  The short walks began just on the gravel drive itself, level enough to not push myself too hard but long enough to get a 20 minute walk (these walks soon turned into one or more hour long explorations). It was during the first walk that I saw a pair of puffballs along the side of the road.  They were hidden slightly under a Sword Fern, and I quickly took my phone out and snapped a picture.  WACK! Machine to the chin. The questions began.  What type of puffball?  Are they edible?  How long until they dry and shoot out their spores?  I now had research to do.

The next few weeks were filled with finding mushrooms and taking pictures.  Everyday I would post pictures of what I had found on social media, sharing my exuberance for the many fungus in my area. Instead of staying on the gravel road I, sometimes accompanied by my daughter and/or wife, would go into the forested areas.  On one alder a clump of Alder Brackets grew; on some stumps in a creek drainage were some beautiful globs of Orange Jelly Spot fungus; popping up from the dead alder leaves were Wrinkled Club fungus; Late Oyster mushrooms grew on a dead, standing alder;  every day, every walk, more mushrooms.  

Soon, I was taking a couple samples of mushrooms home and doing spore prints.  I was learning more and more, and suddenly I realized that these short walks had become adventures in themselves that had led to so much more than just “a walk”.  I was getting my exercise, yet of more importance, I was being curious, exploring the natural world, and engaging in my passions.  The two weeks I had off to recover turned into two weeks of research and what I can only call playfulness.  When I was on my walks I was like a child, seeing things for the first time, the forested world around me, my playground.

And that damned machine that had seemed like such a pain.  It was still a pain, but more easily ignored.

Pictures above from left to right:

Birds Nest Fungi, Late Oyster (Sarcomyxa serotina), and Turkey Tail (Trametes vesicolor).