IN SEARCH OF ADVENTURES

Everyone who knows even just a little about me knows that my distain for cold weather is equal to my love for sunny warm water. This fact can make living in the location that I do a bit of a challenge.

In a state that has 9 months of winter and 3 months of questionable sledding, you can find me inside a great deal between October through May. The tricky part is that I really love being out in nature. To that end, my mother seems to not let the fact that the weather is too bad for even animals to venture out or that the temperatures mean most of nature is either frozen or covered in snow stop her from venturing outside.

On this particular day, there was an alternative reason for me to venture out into the frozen wasteland that is Wisconsin in the winter – a monolith. As you may have heard in the news recently, these curious objects have been popping up in the desert of Utah, Europe and other locations. One recently showed up in one of the locations that we like to hike.

We began in search of this local monolith on snow covered paths. As the wind whipped its fury and the below freezing temperatures did their best to creep inside our jackets we continued on, one step at a time. What I found shocking was the amount of other souls in quest of the same discovery. It was a sort of communal feeling of adventure. “Are you looking for the monolith?” Replaced ‘hello’ and ‘good morning’. Each person offering their ideas as to where it might be.

Each person shared pictures they had saved off local websites. Carefully removing gloves and exposing hands to the elements to compare the picture with the local landscape before quickly replacing the gloves and shoving their phone into their jacket. We saw a gentleman with what appeared to be professional photography equipment, a family pulling each other in sleds and a gentleman with a beard that was almost to his belly button. All looking for the monolith, none of whom found it.

Although we discovered many different surprises that frozen morning, we never did glimpse the monolith. Were our spirits a tad cold after walking away from our mission without success? Not really. Discovering how motivating a sense of adventure can be, realizing you can still hike several miles despite not being able to feel your feet and meeting other local explorers made the whole experience worthwhile.

This winter I encourage you to find an adventure to take with your friends. Get outside and stay active. It will help your body, it will help your mind and it will certainly serve your spirit!