In thinking about this week’s topic, I went down the memory lane of adventure trips I’ve made in the last 20 years. I realized that the one truth each trip had in common is how traveling in a group, especially if it is an adventure trip, can deepen existing friendships, turn recent acquaintances into new fast friends–and make you question why you ever agreed to travel anywhere with an existing friend.

Adventure travel, with all its challenges, mishaps and physical hardships, brings out the best and worst in people. These experiences, in sometimes hostile environments, give you the measure of a person. If you ever wonder if you should enter into a relationship or get married, take that special person on a weeklong outward-bound-type trip. If you still love that person and still have a sense of humor after bug bites, scraped shins and elbows, bad food, rank horses, leaky boats and incredibly long dusty rides in bush vehicles over nonexistent roads, make a commitment to them as soon as you get on the plane home.

With the exception of my annual sailing week on a strictly wind-powered schooner, most of these adventures have been riding holidays in rugged terrain, wilderness areas, or semi-wilderness areas that involved everyone pitching in to make it work. This is when being a team player really matters and you realize that a sense of humor is the most important personality trait that a person can have . You have to  relax, enjoy yourself and always go with the flow.

One of the most amusing moments I’ve had while traveling has been changing into a tuxedo for a bush wedding in Australia. My fellow travelers and I had been invited to a wedding on a sheep station in New South Wales before heading off for a week-long riding trek near Mt. Buller in the Great Dividing Range, which is near the border of Victoria and NSW. I was amused that one of the items I was told to bring was a tuxedo,as it was a formal wedding. How my tux survived unwrinkled sharing a duffel bag with riding boots, chaps, spurs and a hardhat is a testament to its tailoring. I landed in Melbourne, Victoria , and before I knew it was whisked off to stay with an Australian friend, Dave, and his German girlfriend, Andrea, on a sheep station near Mansfield, Vic.  The next day, four of us drove several hours from Mansfield to the wedding, which was near Wagga Wagga, NSW. Since I was still in my East Coast frame of mind, I kept asking where we planned to change into our formal duds. The answer was always the same, “Don’t worry, we’ll find some place to do it.” As we were driving down a dirt road in open sheep-grazing country close to our destination, Dave said, “This looks as good as anywhere to change” and stopped the car at the side of the road with not a tree or a bush in sight. Since there wasn’t a house or a vehicle in sight either, I thought “Okay, go with the flow.” The four of us hopped out of the vehicle and stripped down to our skivvies. Just as we were almost naked, a stream of cars came by with men and women in formal attire all heading for the wedding. Everyone waved and cheered us on as though this happened all the time in Australia. Since Andrea got most of the cheers, I thought I went unnoticed. Not so.

Later, while mingling at the reception, several people came up to me and said. “You dress up well. Last time I saw you, you were in boxer shorts, ha ha ha!” So, if you are invited to a formal wedding in the Australian bush, make sure you do as your mother always cautioned….wear clean underwear. Also, keep a sense of  humor. Each of my fellow traveling companions from the U.S. had similar tales of dressing on the run for this wedding. We still laugh about it, seven years after the event.

-Dick Evans, Vice President