Tuesday morning I was driving north again after a long weekend of climbing in the Oregon desert. We were somewhere along highway 97 in the Yakima Nation when a little black Mazda 3 drove up beside the car with two grinning faces looking out at us and a speeding ticket plastered to the inside of the window. Those two faces belonged to new friends made on the trip, and the drive-by was the start of what could be a long friendship of shared adventure. I only hope his parents don’t find out that he got caught doing 92 in a 55.

Every time I leave for a climbing trip or some other outdoor journey, I have a voice in the back of my head that expects me to come back with some interesting story or new wisdom, or at least photographic evidence that I was having the Time of My Life. I don’t think it is completely outrageous to hope for something of the sort, given the extent to which mountain culture preaches the church of the wilderness, and the way that I feel warm and fuzzy after a weekend tied to a rope. But I do know that sometimes I become disappointed when I can’t filter my thoughts and feelings into a well-groomed vignette of my experiences.

Around the first of this year, my friend Jacob and I made our first trip down to Smith Rock, and it was among the first that either of us had gone on without a mentor or someone stronger than us. It was an educational and exciting trip, but we left with a lot of unfinished business. Eleven months later we made it down again, and it was crazy to see how much things had changed. Everything that had seemed so new and uncertain before now felt as comfortable as coming home at the end of the day. I finally felt like I knew what I was doing and that I really belonged.

Not every trip has to be the kind of life changing, perspective shifting, mind blowing experience we see and read about daily. Sometimes you find yourself living and others you find yourself thriving, and it isn’t always a noticeable difference until you take a step back. I didn’t send my hardest climb, or even climb that much after I hurt my finger on the second day. But I did get to spend time in a cool place and meet some great people and run into old friends, not to mention the feasting on the outstanding culinary creations that we found ourselves making on camp stoves. The best part of the whole trip was that none of this was a Big Deal, and I could relax knowing that I might never know what I’m doing, but it gets a little easier every time.