As I continue my stream of consciousness regarding my best friend, Mike McNett, I find myself constantly aware of my admiration for his love of life. In my own life I have traveled the world, encountered wonderful sights, sounds, smells and tastes (and have barely endured others) and am sometimes looked upon, myself, with envy from others. Their envy always seems misplaced, however, because Mike is the one who is still truly genuine in his zest for adventure, whereas I am the one who has become the jaded interloper into someone else’s somewhere else.

Adventure, to Mike, has always seemed less of something you strive for or try to schedule into life between work and the kids and more of something that should be “normal” from which he is constantly being distracted. I’ve always thought of it in this way; let’s say you, Mike and I are on an airplane headed for the bush in Alaska. Suddenly the plane loses power and we go down. The pilot aims for a lake (being a float plane) and we tumble toward it, splashing down hard losing the pilot and the plane - all of which sinks to the icy depths.

The three of us manage to make it to shore, kicking and sputtering in the bone chilling water by hanging on to a cooler and one of those dry-bags that float even when full. We take stock of our situation and find that we have provisions for about two days and a bag full of dry socks and underwear. Now - here’s where the story gets interesting. Regardless of your own skills (and I mean real skills - not the best way to hook a leech or how many times you watched Grizzly Adams as a kid) which I must lay aside for the moment to bring this point home; I am supremely confident that we would survive. I am sure to the point that I will even set aside the fact that I’ve had over 20 years of military survival training. He could feed us, shelter us, stitch and bind us and, if necessary, carry us out. That’s my confidence level in Mike. Anything outdoors, to Mike, is like genetic code. It’s like automatically knowing the rules of the natural world like you and I automatically know the directions for using Cheez Whiz just by looking at the can.

I think back to an adventure in the Boundary Waters we had many years ago. While I enjoyed myself immensely and wouldn’t trade it for the world, I had some challenges. I sunburn very easily and it doesn’t tan. I’m mildly alergic to DEET. Mosquitoes love me - they fly around at night dreaming about guys like me. I’m a god of bounty in mosquito mythology. Needless to say, by the end of the ten days I was as red as a beet and somewhat “swollen”. The mosquitos seemed to look at Mike like a blue plate special at the local diner, as if to say, “Yuk - same old meatloaf.” Furthermore, though I’m no stranger to the wilderness and have some skills of my own jealously won by much trial and many errors; Mike, on the other hand, seemed entirely within his element. In it to the point where I distinctly recall thinking that he’s tolerating me pretty well - much in the way that I imagine the Native Americans who served as guides must have tolerated the rookie Voyageurs who knew a little about being in the wild, and yet were not born to it.

That’s the guy you’re fishing with, or hiking with, or watching birds with, or trying to be as quiet as or more likely, the guy you’re trying to emulate. That’s the guy who is going to China to compete against the world’s best. Honestly - they don’t stand a well digger’s chance in Hell. How can they? By the way, if you ever get the chance; as Mike about doing a tick check in the Boundary Waters