Do you feel like a sense of adventure is something you are born with or something you learn as you move through life?  

I grew up in a family that embraced the outdoors. My mother was a science teacher and my father a geologist – I also had avid hunters in my brother, uncle, and grandfather. 

While such hobbies were the norm, I never considered whether my sense of adventure came from family influences. Such tendencies have always seemed like such a unique part of my personality. In fact, this trait almost made me feel different. 

In late July 2026, I had been living in my van for over a month and traveling extensively around the Midwest. Stops included:

• My brother’s house in Lansing, Iowa (on the Mississippi River)
• The family farm in Grafton, Wisconsin (adjacent to Milwaukee & Lake Michigan)
• My brother’s hunting cabin in Ashland, Wisconsin (near Lake Superior) 

Traveling home always stirs up memories: some good, some bad, a few somewhere in between. My family has experienced a great deal of loss over the last ten years, and going back to Wisconsin, these things tend to surface and float about in my mind as I travel from place to place. 

At one point in my travels, I felt a thick emotional haze envelop my mind. With the weight of heavy family dynamics, I was feeling disoriented, like I was feeling my way through a landscape I could no longer see. Things so unclear. 

When driving from the family farm in Grafton back up to Ashland, I decided to stop at a place called Boulder Lake. It’s located in the Nicolet National Forest, about an hour and a half north of Green Bay. 

My family had a cabin right on Boulder Lake growing up. Some of my greatest childhood memories come from Boulder Lake. When I think of a safe place or a happy place, I picture myself lying on a towel in a pontoon boat, feeling the sun overhead, listening to the water against the pontoons and the wind in the trees. 

It’s a place where memories of lost loved ones permeate. Of a different time when life felt so easy and innocent. As I traveled in my van around Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest this summer, I really wanted to make a point of stopping there. 

I arrived at Boulder Lake late in the evening, set up my van, and relaxed. 

Waking up the next morning, the forest campground was immersed in a thick layer of fog. As Boulder Lake is an inland lake, I was really surprised by the misty morning. This is something I’d expect in the Pacific Northwest or the Great Lakes – not this small body of fresh water deep in the woods. 

Yet, the fog coming off Boulder Lake brought me back to someplace unexpected. When I was very young, my grandfather would wake my brother and me up early in the morning and take us fishing. Would motor out into this same morning mist in search of places where large fish lurked beneath the surface 

At the time, it felt like the biggest adventure in the world. Out on the mysterious lake surface with the sun barely cracking the horizon, enveloped in fog and the scents and sounds of the lake. Lines gently cast in the water. Ripples spreading outward. 

As bobbers floated and lures swam, they captivated our eyes first, and then our imaginations. Reminiscing on this morning, some 35 years later, I came to realize that what really made fishing interesting for me was wondering and picturing what might be lurking just beneath the surface of the water. 

There could be a giant northern pike stalking your lure, or ready to strike your minnow. Or perhaps there was nothing at all. Imagining the deep contours of Boulder Lake as a child, it felt like anything was possible beneath the glassy surface. 

These outings were so much more than just fishing trips. They pushed my imagination out from bedrooms and classrooms and out into the world. I wanted to know what was around the next bend of the lake or hiding in a distant weed bed. 

And I needed to go find out. 

As an avid adventurer in my mid-forties, I find myself pulled over mountain passes and distant peaks by an unbending curiosity. Not hiking or climbing to meet an objective or check a box on a list. Rather, to simply see what’s out there.

Sometimes you just have to go look.  

When I got to Boulder Lake that first evening, I thought it suitable to have a campfire. After all, I wanted to soak this place in. I’ve always been pretty skilled at starting a fire, but this night I had no such luck. Too much moisture on the ground and just not the right size branches as kindling to bridge the gap between a piece of paper and a log.

And as I sat there, kind of laughing, I also remembered that this was the first place I ever learned to have a campfire. I realized how deeply this place had shaped me. Boulder Lake was where I first learned to fish, build a fire, and read the weather. 

At night, we’d sit out on the dock and gaze at the stars while my mom explained the constellations to us with her star chart from science class. The sky was endless, the Milky Way bright and pure. The campfire was burning on the shore, welcoming us back to safety and comfort – when we were ready for it. 

As the morning progressed and the fog burned away, I packed up my site. 

I got Sunny into the water and jumped in with her, tossing the ball while she swam. Something about watching her play in the same lake where I had spent so much of my childhood felt strangely reassuring. It was like sharing a small, private piece of my past with my best friend. 

There was balance and clarity in these simple actions. Something beyond words. 

As I lay on the beach that day, staring across the lake, I got distant visions of the cabin where I grew up. Flag blowing in the wind out front. Flashes of the red siding when the light was just right. Images of my dad driving a speedboat, parking at the sandbar so we could all swim. Evenings casting fishing lines into the shallows and watching the line gently settle on the water in the setting sun. 

The sun of northern Wisconsin seemed to burn through the fog of my mind as I pulled crystal clear memories from the depths. 

Travel is funny like that. So are our memories. 

Sometimes you have to experience a place physically to recover a part of yourself. The visceral sensations in sights, smells, and sounds. 

That’s one of the most beautiful things about this way of life. While going to new places and letting my sense of adventure pull me forward is fulfilling in one way, revisiting these places of old impacts me differently on an emotional plane. 

While I still had a four-hour drive to get back to Ashland that day, something just wouldn’t let me leave Boulder Lake. I had a snorkel and mask in my van, so I decided to go for a swim. 

I really wanted to look beneath the water. 

Having lived and worked on scuba dive charters in the Bahamas for years, I have a lot of experience with snorkeling and free diving. While seeing fish and rocks and driftwood is always a pleasure, one of my favorite parts of snorkeling is just lying on the surface and breathing. 

The feeling of weightlessness as beams of light penetrate the surface and form into countless designs on the sandy bottom. Colors change, and patterns shift. As you inhale and fill your lungs with air, your body slowly rises. As you exhale, it gently drops. 

And I just lay there on the surface, breathing for quite some time.

A place where I learned to build a fire, fish, and gaze at the heavens would be a North Star for the rest of my life. My sense of adventure – both born and handed down from older generations.  

I’ve been searching for a theme for this summer of Midwestern travel. But have struggled to come up with one. It’s like some type of clarity has been missing. 

But perhaps that’s just it. This summer has been about introducing two parts of myself to one another. The man I am today and the child I was then. My fiercely independent personality and everything I was handed from my family – the good and the bad. 

Climbed quietly from the water and dried myself off. Put the keys in the ignition of the van and started the engine. Heading north, wondering what was around the next curve.