The Average Flatlander heads out into the busy on a balmy 95-degree July day. We headed back into some abandoned gravel pit in this Part 1, looking for a monster lurking in the deep waters that have been forgotten and forlorn.
We find a bass, but not much else, the skeeters and heat about did us in.
The things that can happen to outdoor adventures never cease to amaze me. Years go by, books get written, stories get made into movies, and we all know better … yet it happens again and again, like clockwork.
I was recently in the far quiet north contemplating life on the shore of Lake Superior, of course, I had a book in my hands while I listened to the crashing of the waves. A wilderness survival book nonetheless. In fact this book was about some real-life survival stories, one of which happened a mear ~50 miles or so from where I was comfortably reclining on a sofa with a hot cup of tea and my book watching the sun go down over that Big Lake.
And then, much to my surprise, as I scrolled through my phone … I saw a story pop up of basically that exact same thing happening to someone many thousands of miles away in Colorado. It was just too good to be true. Two stories, thousands of miles apart, a decade has passed … yet the same thing was still happening.
Long week? Tired of the proverbial rat race? Are kids too addicted to their screens? Are you too addicted to your screen??
In case you haven’t been following the outdoor news, all you bush crafters, survivalists, and outdoor adventure enthusiasts have just been schooled by a 34-year-old hiker who became lost in the mountains of northern California … for 10 days … without food or water when he disappeared!
I keep wondering if we will see an Arc floating by. It seems we are always fighting one thing or another. One year it’s dry and forest fires blow smoke to our southern neighbors, or like this year it’s biblical floods.
There are few things in life better than disappearing on a weekend deep into the bush and fishing a trout stream that apparently no one else knows about. Overgrown, lonely, bug and weed infested. When you are head high in weeds and being eaten by bugs, that’s when you know that only the strong few will ever fight this hard for adventure and trout.
There are few things more exhilarating in life than sneaking around somewhere you feel like you shouldn’t be. I mean, if you think hard enough all the way back to high school … isn’t that what we all did most of the time? Sneak into the school, sneak into the pool, sneak into your friend’s house, etc etc.
I guess some people never grow up.
Doing bushcraft is one thing, doing it on Federal Land is another. Who knows who will show up and put you in the clinker? You better be quiet and stealthy.
In another unsurprising move for the state of Iowa in regards to our limited and already shakey natural resources, yet another pride and joy has slipped into a putrid state of disrepair and neglect. As if the degradation of our soil and water to a ridiculous state isn’t enough, we have to add this to the list as well.
I’m not sure if you keep up on the happenings in the outdoor world, but we, Average Flatlanders do, and one of the strange pieces of news recently is the apparent dying on the vine of probably one of the most popular and best outdoor stores REI.
To knock the rocks or to NOT knock the rocks, is that now the question of our age for us backpacking and wilderness travelers? Apparently so.