How I Fell in Love With The Great Outdoors

I can’t really say when this all started. Was it the hikes that my parents used to take us on at Happy Jack in Nebraska? Maybe it was all those fishing trips? Most likely, I think my love for the outdoors began with a little sister’s admiration for her big brother.

My brother Jesse has always loved being outdoors. When he built a campsite out in the woods, I found my own campsite to maintain. He went out camping with his friends, and I even found one or two girl friends who would sleep out under the stars with me.

We rarely used a tent, but when he found this great deal on a small nylon rope hammock, I bought one too.

Shortly after after he started talking about hiking the Appalachian trail, I started dreaming of it too. We read the Home Handyman encyclopedias over and over. The most well read one was the volume on building a log cabin.

Jesse still does camping, but most of his adventures involve building rock crawling buggies. My dreams got stuck on camping and backpacking.

High school and college came and went and introduced a lot of distractions into my life. Even living in the middle of a city, I get a serious case of wanderlust at least once a week. That can only be cured by an afternoon (or a day) wild bound.