First I need to be clear about something. There is nothing wrong with being a tourist. I just got back from a lovely three-week vacation and spent much of the time being just that. I ambled along the board walk on the Jersey shore, went to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Massachussetts, enjoyed a wonderful concert at Tanglewood and even sailed on the Schooner Manitou on one of the bays off Lake Michigan. They even let me man the helm for a few seconds! I was a tourist through and through.

As a tourist you sample a bit of this and a bit of that, and then you move on. You never really delve deeply into anything. You skim the surface, never really committing to anything. It may be a fine way to take a vacation--but it's no way to live life!

For me one of the joys of vacation is having time to read. One of the books I read on this trip was Warren Richey's Without a Paddle. It is a beautifully written memoir, which recounts his participation in the Ultimate Florida Challenge, a twelve-hundred mile water race around Florida. (In addition to the coastlines, it involves a couple of rivers and some portaging along the northern border of the state.) All entrants must circumnavigate the state in a self-powered or wind-powered boat--Richey uses a kayak.

The book is full of descriptions of Florida's flora and fauna. And woven throughout his story, are Richey's reflections on his divorce and his blossoming relationship with a woman named Linda. Both the race and his reflections are full of high points and low. Several times he faces life threatening situations as he paddles through the night.

At one point Richey writes: "A famous British explorer once said that no journey is ever truly an adventure unless you face the distinct possibility of death. Everything else is just tourism . . . . I don't have a death wish . . . . It is the exact opposite. I want to live. I want to travel to the heart, to the precipice, to the depths . . . When I push my way to the edge of that strange and distant place, I may be called many things, but tourist is not one of them." (324)

Most of us may never be involved in something like the Ultimate Florida Challenge. But all of us are involved in the Ultimate LIFE Challenge. And we do indeed face the "distinct possibility of death." We can try to navigate the waters of existence as tourists--or we can commit ourselves to this place called Planet Earth and live life with a real sense of adventure--and purpose! The choice is ours.

(Photo Credit: Robert Danner--with thanks for a great time on the Manitou!)