A different kind of Boomer adventure

I confess here and now that I love adventure: heart stopping, dangerous, titillating, adrenaline pumping moments, and all from the comfort of my great big blue overstuffed chair. Reading has always been a source of unmitigated joy and danger with the shore always in view. I have another confession to make; I live vicariously through my children, especially a daughter who travels the world, seeks adventure like an eagle seeks land, sometimes with as little as a knapsack on her back, and experiences lives and cultures at the grass roots level. While admittedly, she did not get that wanderlust gene from her mother, I bask in her experiences, hold my breath at her endangerment, and release it when she is safe.

Where have I been living as I do through my daughters sojourns? I have traveled high into the hills of Thailand, to an elephant sanctuary, thrown buckets of water on the rescued elephants, and watched them stomp in joy. I have traveled roads cut through the mountains that curve like a snake seeking shade. Oh yes, she has been where cobras wander the lush green jungles of Bali, but remember, I am still safely ensconced in my big blue chair. I tell her 'write down your adventures,' but she is too busy living them, while I am busy imagining them.

While I have a greater appreciation for the cold climates, I enjoy most her pictures and descriptions of places like Kazakhstan and Iceland. A little closer to home, Seattle and Vancouver look lush and inviting without the fear of creepy, crawly things that swarm in the warmer climates.

Then there is the food, the face of which has no match in my own repertoire of meat and potatoes. Vegetables and fruits that I have never heard of are put in front of her and she relishes new sights, new sounds, and new tastes like no tourist I have ever met. Maybe the biggest surprise came when my daughter told me that horse meat is very common, and yes she did try it.

How can someone go from the tropical jungles of Vietnam to the arctic climate of Kazakhstan where the average temperature is forty below zero in the winter. She described a beautiful, indoor upscale mall, where they have created an actual beach with sand.  The buildings have other worldly architecture and the city inhabitants are young and upwardly mobile. Mmm, mobile where the snow piles high, the wind blows hard, and your breath is visible with every word you speak.

As my daughter journeys to these far away places, many of which I had  never heard of, I begin my research. Kazakhstan, the 9th largest country in the world. Predominately Kazakhs, but inclusive of 131 ethnic groups.  It is a city built with futuristic architecture, which to many seems more like a space station with a myriad of shapes and sculptures jutting out into the vast blue sky.

Is she really my daughter?  That is the spirit of adventure, and I also have it, as long as I am in my blue, overstuffed chair.