First, in my vernacular, any experience that is outside of the "normal" and has an element of risk that afterwards leaves me with memories (hopefully all positives) that I recall for a long time is an adventure. A pretty broad definition, but it works for me.
Back in the summer of 1970 we were working summer jobs in the Burg between our jr. and senior years in college. As a break before heading back to school, we decided to head out west.
In a nutshell, we hopped a freight train in Aurora, IL, and rode it to Whitefish, MT. From there we hitchhiked to Baniff, Canada where we hiked and hung-out for a while. I then hitchhiked down to Washington and Dave hitchhiked and rode trains back to Ill.
That short description doesn't do justice to all of the mini-adventures we had along the way: getting caught by yard bulls in the train yards of St. Paul;having our train car set off in a train yard and losing the rest of the train in Minot, ND; running through a wheat field in Montana to buy beer while the train was on a side track waiting for another train to pass; illegally entering Canada; running out of money in Baniff and having a friend wire some to us; Sharing a box car with some real hobos who taught us the finer points of sleeping in a box car (don't sleep long ways with the car, sleep cross ways; it's safer if the train suddenly stops). After we separated and I was in Washington, I had the opportunity to work fighting a forest fire for a few days. The job helped pay for my flight back home. The scenery and other imagines from the trip are still very vivid for me.
The experience was a life-changer. My self-image was always different after that trip. Although when Dave and I do get together now, we seldom reference that trip in our conversations, the experiences will always be a bond we share.
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