Blog #628: Sipping Lemonade with Bears

Walk with me.

But as we do…
keep a lookout for bears.

______

No date has been set, but walking across…

Country #10 is definitely on my mind.

I haven’t fully committed in my head which country to walk yet…

but I’m diligently exploring options in Wales, Greece and Japan.

And as I plan, THREE things are a given.

At the end of each day, I’ll make sure to find:

1. A bed.
2. A shower.
3. A beer.

They’re keys that have helped me cross nine finish lines.

And they wear a story.

______

It was my first hike…EVER.

On it, I had…

1. No bed.
2. No shower.
3. But I did have Whiskey Lemonades.

After I finished that wild hike…

I vowed to never be without #1 and #2 again.

I NOW know (without a doubt)…

I’m NOT a tent guy. I also know that without a hot shower after a long hiking day…bones ache more.

As for #3?

Read on.

______

“When life gives you lemons…make Whiskey Lemonades.”

Here’s the whole story…

I was in college and hiking 200 miles on California’s John Muir Trail with a friend. We were carrying our lives on our backs…sleeping bags, tent, stove, food…everything. And, of course, it was BEAR country.

To keep food away from bears at night…

We would hang our backpacks over a tree limb a safe distance away from our tent. We would take a rope and tie a rock to one end of it and a pack to the other end. Then, we would toss the rock over a secure tree limb high off the ground. Gravity would bring the rock down, so we could grab it…and then hoist our packs into the air.

One night, however…

A wily bear easily outsmarted two Berkeley seniors.

______

Even after raising our food HIGH into the air…

We woke up the next morning with our backpacks on the ground…shredded.

A bear had gotten them. Evidently, the bear had climbed the tree, went out on the limb, and shook the packs to the ground.

He then enjoyed a full buffet of all the food we carried.

BUT kindly…

The bear left three items that assured our continuing survival:

1. A canister of powdered chocolate.
2. Multiple packets of lemonade mix.
3. A bottle of whiskey.

With no phone, food-delivery service or other hikers available to share food…

things got serious for us fast.

There was no one to save us.

Except ourselves.

And Whiskey Lemonades.

______

Over the next two days…

We walked as fast as our tired feet could carry our sewed-back-together packs. We drank stream water with iodine tablets, rationed spoons of powdered chocolate…and freely mixed packets of lemonade with whiskey.

We succeeded in getting to our next food drop.

We restocked our packs and continued hiking.

And we picked up more lemonade and whiskey.

Just in case.

______

To be clear…

This blog is NOT about encouraging hikers to take lemonade packets and a bottle of whiskey when hiking in bear country.

Instead…

It answers a far more serious question:

“What do we do when life becomes overwhelmingly tough?”

My answer as a lifetime entrepreneur and adventurer?

“Be tougher than life.”

In order to survive…

We sometimes need to be.

______

The next time…

Life overwhelms you with hungry bears, brutal news, and overwhelming chaos…

Write the words down.

Post them on the mirror.

Tape them to the steering wheel.

And then become them.

“Be tougher than life.”

Because we can be when we need to be.

S.

______

A final note on bears…

I’d love to tell you, “We had no more bear encounters” during that 30-mile, foodless walk in the wilderness…but I can’t.

We DID have a second late-night run-in. (We thought it might have been the same hungry bear…tracking us.)

So there we were…

Two guys trembling in their tent as they watched a growling bear’s silhouette move angrily through camp pawing for food when there was none to be found.

Ahhh…

Maybe a blog for another day?