Top Ten Things to Do After an Adventure

End of the road. Maui, Hawaii

Many of us, resigned to societal obligations—office hours, commutes and so forth—frequently dream of being out in the wilderness, having adventures on mountains or rivers and roughing it, utterly satisfied.  And when we get out and play, disconnecting from the modern world and worries at home, it’s great.  Inevitably though, sore, tired and stinking, it’s time to head home and not think about adventure, for a few days at least.  It’s time to relish in the luxuries of civilization that you suddenly miss dearly.

Here are the top ten things to do when you’re over it:

1. Drink a Cold Beer

For days, all your food, beers and the six inches of water everything in your cooler is floating in have maintained a temperature of approximately seventy-five degrees. Still, mildly refreshing in comparison to the triple-digit scorch of summer in the desert.  At long last, a cold draft beer is enough to make you not care if you ever see red rock again.

2. Eat Pizza

Pasta that tastes like the inside of your water reservoir.  Compressed breakfast burritos. Trail mix. We love it.  But the ultimate comfort food after days outdoors is pizza.  Hawaiian, pepperoni, or the purists’ pie, plain cheese, it doesn’t matter.  Humanity has created a largely excruciating world but they’ve made pizza in the process.  So I’m sticking around.

3. Sleep

A bed, what a thing to behold.  And the sleep you get in it!  Fresh sheets and soft pillows and a comforter and no alarm clock for work or alpine starts.  I slept in a sleeping bag for an entire year in college so I know it can be done.  I just prefer a proper bed nowadays.  We take our beds for granted, being the place we most dependably spend our time after all.  But after sleeping rough in a tent or car or nothing at all for a few days, there’s few things (just beer and pizza, really) to be more grateful for. 

4. Sex

Let’s be honest, you were not getting any in the two-man tent.

5. Edit and Post Photos

Social media is whack.  Geotags are destroying the wilderness.  Why do we spent so much of our lives staring at screens?  Why can’t we just disconnect?  These are the overtures that lead us into nature, into reality, to consume oxygen, tramp on dirt, dine on native trout, and commune with the Milky Way.  Back home though?  Fuck it.  We’re bragging on Instagram.

6. Not Watch Netflix

Binge watch six hours of a single show on Netfilx but not watch any of it because you’re simultaneously on your phone reading news, tweeting about Bernie and mindlessly scrolling Instagram.  You just did six days in B.C. hacking through raspberry bushes.  You deserve the release.

7. Shower

Yes, shower, I don’t know why we haven’t showered yet.  It might be number seven but think about doing this sometime before three and/or four.  You can’t tell but you smell awful.

8. Take a Detour

Vegas after Zion.  San Francisco after Big Sur.  Portland after Hood.  In a lot of cases you’ve got to catch a flight out of one of these hubs after an adventure or maybe you’re just passing through.  After detoxing from society for a while, it’s fun to jump back in with a brand new city and a night out.  A hotel room and a fancy dinner is wonderful culture shock.

9. Korean Spa

If there’s one near you, just go as soon as you come back from your next suffer fest.

10. Start Planning

Admit it.  You loved it and can’t wait to get back out again.  You’ve licked your wounds and lavished in modernity, a society you’ll come to resent once again in a matter of days or weeks.  So get a head start prowling beta for your next trip out.