Adventure is Where You Look

What a difference a few days can make in our Iowa weather! Last week we were enjoying warmer weather and suddenly this morning we woke up to winter again! I did not run out and take any pictures as I had seen enough snow during the season that WAS actually winter.

I chose, instead, to remember the weather last week when my husband invited me for an adventure along the river. We heard that people had been morel mushroom hunting and thought perhaps we should give that a go.

After climbing up and down slippery banks, hanging onto low hanging tree limbs to keep from sliding back down and stepping over fallen, rotting logs, we had not caught sight of anything resembling a mushroom. We decided that we  were either worthless at this ‘shroom hunting thing, they just weren’t growing yet, or they do not grow where we were looking.

Fortunately, for us, there was so much other stuff to enjoy and take in. We got to see an old apple tree, in full bloom, hanging out over the river. We did wonder how long and how many more years before the river bank eroded and that tree would topple into the river. We also wondered what kind of apple it was. My husband tells me it gets small, crab apple sized apples on it and they are quite tasty.

We rounded a corner and the air smelled like perfume. We then spotted where that wonderful smell was coming from………. there was a plum thicket in full bloom. I shoved my nose into the flowers and just inhaled as deeply as I could! I wish I could bottle that scent…it was absolutely beautiful.

I discovered that sometimes the best adventures are the ones where you find what you weren’t even looking for. We didn’t find any mushrooms; but in many ways we found something so much better.

We found beauty in the water rippling over the rocks. We smelled something far better than any bottled perfume, in the blossoms of a plum thicket. We saw the tenacity of an apple tree hanging onto a river bank and still blooming profusely. And we watched a hawk sitting in it’s nest in a tree high above us.

So much of life can be an adventure. Sometimes, even our Iowa weather can be an adventure. The day can start out looking like winter (in the springtime!) and 12 hours later the snow is gone, the grass is once again green and not snow-covered, and the birds are singing their end of day songs. Life, in all it’s variety, is an amazing, wonderful thing.

The one sure thing about weather in Iowa is the fact that it can run the gamut of two to three season……..all in one day. It is hard to know how to plan for that but you are never bored! I believe the key to surviving that kind of day is to keep in mind the adventure of it all and that the joy really is in the journey.

“I do not want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it.
I want to have lived the width of it as well.”
-Diane Ackerman