Be Careful Going In Search Of Adventure

At Any Particular Moment In A Man's Life, He Can Say That Everything He Has Done And Not Done, That Has Been Done And Not Been Done To Him, Has Brought Him To That Moment. If He's Being Installed As Chieftain Or Receiving A Nobel Prize, That's A Fulfilling Notion. But If He's In A Sleeping Bag At Ten Thousand Feet In A Snowstorm, Parked In The Middle Of A Highway And Waiting To Freeze To Death, The Idea Can Make Him Feel Calamitously Stupid.

A Man Who Couldn't Make Things Go Right Could At Least Go. He Could Quit Trying To Get Out Of The Way Of Life. Chuck Routine. Live The Real Jeopardy Of Circumstance. It Was A Question Of Dignity.

What You've Done Becomes The Judge Of What You're Going To Do - Especially In Other People's Minds. When You're Traveling, You Are What You Are Right There And Then. People Don't Have Your Past To Hold Against You. No Yesterdays On The Road.

Having Made The Trip From St. Louis To The Pacific Ocean Myself Going Up Up Up Against Twenty-five Hundred Miles Of The Missouri River, I Can Testify That It's One Of The Most Arduous Trips That Anyone Can Make On This Continent And Yet I Had A Power Boat To Do It In.

Instead Of Insight, Maybe All A Man Gets Is Strength To Wander For A While. Maybe The Only Gift Is A Chance To Inquire, To Know Nothing For Certain. An Inheritance Of Wonder And Nothing More.