What Kind of Adventure Was it?
Andrew Linn's quiz questions help you decide whether things were good or bad
How do you define “adventure”? Not everyone sees it quite the same way. Some will refer to a long walk in the woods or an afternoon sail as an “adventure,” while others use the word more judiciously. Mountaineer Yvon Chouinard says the word adventure is overused. “To me,” he writes “adventure is when everything goes wrong. That’s when adventure starts.”
While some folks strenuously avoid situations where things might go wrong, most consider some modest level of adventure a positive—either for the experience or the potential growth. Others consider life’s challenges the whole point. Hunter S. Thompson wrote": “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a Ride!’”
Longtime SCA friend and contributor Andy Linn has seen his share of small-boat adventures—from a nerve-fraying heavy-weather Everglades Challenge trapped for days aboard a SCAMP, to countless Texas 200 campaigns in various quickly-assembled plywood creations.
Years ago Andy joked about how it was possible to determine whether a small-boat trip was good adventure, a bad adventure, or if it was even an adventure at all. As he rightly notes, it’s not a good adventure if you end up on the side of the road with a flat before reaching the ramp, but neither is it a good adventure if everything goes exceptionally well. I like to think the tale you can tell after is the true measure of the ordeal. As author John Green wrote: “As long as we don't die, this is gonna be one hell of a story.”
I asked Andy if he could summarize his findings in quiz question. Below are his questions and some of our thoughts on each. We wish you just the right amount of adventure on your next outing. —Josh Colvin
WHAT KIND OF ADVENTURE DID YOU HAVE? A quiz by Andy Linn
Did anyone try to advise you against this particular trip?
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Small Craft Advisor to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.