My buddy Stephen spontaneously flew into Phoenix earlier this week to hike the Grand Canyon with his girlfriend’s family. We met up at Four Peaks at one in the morning after his flight got in. He slept for a few hours at my house and drove out of the city before dawn.

We met up tonight for a few hours before his flight took off back to Atlanta. We had dinner at Chelsey’s Kitchen on the patio and caught up on how our lives are coming around. The orange blossoms of Arcadia were in bloom, so everything smelled beautiful. That’s gotta be the most intoxicating aroma on the planet. You can get high just walking through a parking lot.

It’s been ten years since Stephen and I left Towns County High School for college, and we’ve both done so much since then. We really shot out of that town like a pebble out of a sling shot. Once we left the town limits, there was no turning back.

He’s lived in Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tahoe, and now Atlanta again. I lived in Los Angeles, Atlanta, New Orleans, New York, and now Phoenix. He’s traveled the country at least 20 times. I’ve traved to 230+ destinations in America. Although I spend more time in an airplane, he’s done a lot more high-altitude adventure. He’s backpacked all over the West. He’s snowboarded down many, many mountains.

I was the first to paddle a surf board into the Pacific (back in 1997), but Stephen has proven to be a more committed and talented surfer. One thing that stays the same is how much each of us love to ride bicycles. He does the more hardcore speed biking. I prefer the mountain bike that lets me explore the back alleys of cities. I’ve settled into a steady job where I get to be creative and productive. Stephen has skipped from job to job, whatever allowed him to live out the adventures he desired.

Both of us first saw our adventurous spirit when we were in Boy Scouts. I was 12 and he weas 11. Most boys that age want some adventure, but they are confined to their dullness of a neighborhood. They end up getting kicks out of being good at a video game or looking at dirty magazines. The two of us explored the east Coast in that Scout van with the rest of the guys in the troop. Over the years we were in Scouts, we spent at least a 100 nights out in the woods, braving the elements.

To this day, I am always thankful for these things: fresh water, enough food to not be hungry, and a dry shelter. I know what it’s like to lay in a wet sleeping bag through 8 hours of darkness. I’ve done it many, many nights. So it doesn’t matter how bad my day gets as an adult, I am still thankful to slide into a warm, dry bed.

So what if bottled water costs too much—at least it’s there, icy cold whenever you want to pay $2 at Circle K. When you are on the top of a mountain and only have ½ a cup of water for you and your tentmate for 2 days, now that sucks. That night I put four wood stakes in the ground and draped my plastic poncho over it like a sunken canopy. I stuffed the hood into a water bottled to serve as a funnel. I surrounded the bottle with rocks, and then went to bed praying for rain. I woke up the next morning to a full bottle of water. That was one of the best mornings of my life.

Candyce flew in from San Diego the same time Stephen was flying back to Atlanta. It’s so much easier to be at the airport when I have nowhere to go. It’s actually kind of fun. You get to people watch and enjoy the action. I was happy to see Stephen off and drive home with Candyce. I know that she and I won’t be able to continue the pace of adventure that I’ve had in the 10 years since I’ve graduated high school. But I do know that just being together is an adventure. Our life will be good together.