Two regrets in a more general sense that they weren't concrete "grand adventures" but merely *potential* grand adventures:
Damn it, both of those made me tear up a little writing about them...
- doing more in the outdoors with my father before he passed away. Before my father got married, he was a mountain climber and traveled to Peru to climb some of the peaks in the Cordillera Blanca (he also went climbing in the US and Canadian Rocky Mountains). I remember as a kid growing up on the occasional weekend evening my dad would get out the slide projector and go through some of his Peru photos. It was intriguing to hear his adventures climbing mountains with mysterious names like Huascarán, Chopicalqui, Pisco, etc. He climbed with a group called the Iowa Mountaineers, a pretty unlikely location for a mountain climbing club. I regret not asking to go on adventures like that with him (although I did climb part way up the Matterhorn with him to the Hörnli hut; I vividly remember being scared out of my mind by the steepness of the slopes and, if I remember correctly, essentially making the hike in sneakers; I was 16 at the time and I'm sure my Dad thought it nothing more than a stroll in mountain meadows). Some of his climbing gear still sits in my Mom's basement along with a bunch of Iowa Mountaineers club newsletters. I put his ice ax with him in his coffin.
- spending time in the summer with my aunt (one of my Mom's 10 siblings) and uncle in Iowa. My aunt and uncle did not have children and when we went to visit my Mom's family in Iowa we always stayed with this particular aunt and uncle. My uncle was an avid outdoorsman: duck/goose hunting, fishing, etc. I remember the basement of his modest house being filled with duck and goose decoys and a camouflaged duck hunting boat. A small fishing boat was always in his one-car garage and an outboard invariably in the testing tank being tinkered with. If we were visiting in the summer, he would always take me fishing on the Mississippi River for catfish (nothing better than fresh catfish!). He also had a houseboat on the river where we would spend long, lazy days messing around on inner tubes, skiing behind the fishing boat, going fishing, etc. My aunt and uncle weren't rich in money, but they were rich in knowing how to enjoy life. They always wanted me to come visit them and spend a summer. I never did. My uncle died in his 50s of a heart attack while I was in college. I have always regretted never spending a summer with my aunt and uncle; a "grand adventure" it would probably would have been, but in a location that most folks would consider anything but. My uncle always called me "Laddy Buck". He died too young.
Damn it, both of those made me tear up a little writing about them...
