My Mom is an adventurer.  I’m not sure when I realized it.  It was not when we were kids and she skirted around a barricade on a highway because she knew she wanted to get over to that other side.  It wasn’t when she drove half way across the country by herself with three kids or when she and my Dad literally built our house and barn.  I didn’t think it was out of the ordinary that she raised cattle by herself after the divorce.  I did start to get an inkling when she went to India for a month, and I thought to myself that I would never do that!  The older I got, the more adventurous my young Mom seemed to be!  She went to France, drove to Montana, visited the Northwest, vacationed with us on a houseboat in Canada, hiked with her newlywed granddaughter in the Texas Hill country, and picked wild blueberries with us in the Northwoods even after we saw evidence of a bear.  In just the last six months she has visited Minnesota three times, tent-camped for a week-long trip to Wyoming, and oh, did I mention she’s refurbishing an old camper?

My Mom met us at Big Stone Lake State Park yesterday, where South Dakota meets Minnesota—at the Big Stone and the Big Lake.

We met to celebrate my Mom and her eight decades of life.  We picnicked, ate cake, hiked a little, drove through Big Stone National Wildlife Refuge, and took photos.  It was a good day.  My Mom and I share a love for Nature, and I am ever so grateful for that.  I don’t think I’ll ever be as adventurous as my Mom—I think I’m too cautious and worry too much (that long plane ride over the ocean makes me shudder.)  But I also realize that we can all be adventurous in our own way—my friend Lynda is a spiritual adventurer, graduate school is an intellectual adventure for our daughter Anna, climbing mountains and moving to a new state are two kinds of adventures for my friend Michaela, and so on down the list of family and friends.  So here’s to my Mom, the adventurer, and to all you other adventurers out there, no matter what your horizons!