A Redneck Perspective: Real life adventure (as told by the adventurer)

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

By Clyde Thornhill

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Susie, my Shades girl, wanted me to go to Utah for spring break. “Utah!” I exclaimed. “That sounds so thrilling!”

“I’m glad you’re excited,” Susie said. I fear the concept of sarcasm is lost on Susie.
 “Why would anyone want to go to Utah except as a shortcut to Las Vegas or to gain an appreciation of the concept of hell?” I asked. “The beer is 3.2 percent, the women all want to get married, and the strippers are required to dress in traditional Islamic style.”

“We’re going to explore slot canyons,” she told me. “We’ll camp in the desert, watch the stars, it will be great!”
“Didn’t someone get their arm caught between rocks in a slot canyon, and have to cut it off to escape?”
“That was Aron Ralston. His book, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, sold thousands of copies.”

Thousands of copies! Sales of my book, Saddles to Sushi, have dropped in recent weeks. Whether due to the economic decline, a lack of effort by bookstores, or a public that fails to understand sophisticated humor, I did not know. However, a new book featuring life-threatening adventure could put me back on top.
“I’ll go,” I told her. I hoped Susie could come up with something more original than cutting off her arm. That was already taken.

We pitched camp on the side of a dirt road in the San Rafael Swell. The next morning, after a satisfying breakfast of granola, fresh fruit and Coors, we headed for Little Wild Horse Canyon.

Adventure books typically involve the writer walking or climbing to some forlorn place, breaking a leg, falling into a crevasse, or getting his arm stuck between two rocks. Then he writes about how he survived. It seems a bit contrived to me.
We had been hiking for almost an hour and had yet to encounter a life-threatening situation. I’d never get a book at this rate. I was about to tell Susie to break her leg or cut off her arm when we heard a distant roaring.

“A flash flood!” I yelled. Susie quickly dropped her pack and dug out her helmet. “What the hell good is a helmet going to do!” I yelled.

“The N@G always mentions if an outdoor adventurer has their helmet on when they die,” she said. “It could be so embarrassing!”

I dug through my pack, grabbed a Coors, then turned toward the sound and prepared for death.  The roaring got louder. I grabbed Susie’s hand. “You’re one of my favorite girlfriends,” I reassured her. The roar was almost deafening and I knew the end was near when two dirt bikes locked up their breaks to keep from running into us. 

“No flash flood,” I said to myself relieved to be alive but concerned about the appeal of an adventure book where no one dies or at least has their leg broken.
Susie and I rode back to camp on the back of the bikes and Susie broke out some gorp with organic sunflower seeds and dried tofu chips. “You are really going to eat that stuff?” one of the bikers asked in disbelief.  “How do you survive?”

I smiled as I suddenly knew my new book’s title Between a Raisin and a Peanut: Surviving a Week in the High Desert with Organic Food. Available soon at fine bookstores everywhere. PJH
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A Redneck Perspective: Real life adventure (as told by the adventurer) | Planet JH News Article: General Worm Hole

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