The hills of Pennsylvania are aflame with the passionate reds and oranges of autumn; colour leaping toward the blue sky as if from the canvas of the great impressionist masters.  We left this morning in the chilly pre-dawn darkness with a huddle hug in the living room and prayers offered for our safe journey by our dear missionary friends.  The sun rose in shades of fiery pink in our rear view mirror as we surfed out onto the black ribbon of highway and headed west.

There is no one for unexpected adventure like Sam Adams (born on the fourth of July, no less!) He’s the delightfully quirky father of six of the very best young people ever born and husband to my sparkly friend, Melissa.

Sam in the subway in Vienna

We met them, quite by accident, in the Czech Republic, where they were missionaries for eight years, and fell instantly in love.  Instead of a two day visit, we stayed nearly two weeks and we keep coming back.

Sam has lead the charge through the Punkva Caves of Moravia, gamely trekked through Austria in massive rain to camp with us, he’s hiked us out to old Nazi bunkers, and enthusiastically toured us through the Martin Guitar factory.  This visit was no exception.  He bundled the combined herd of 14 up and we headed to the local historical society with a few of his collected treasures to take part in an “antiques road show” type event where expert appraisers were being brought in to value an assortment of items.

There is something you should know about Sam.  He’s a collector. Not a collector in the sense of a few books of coins, or a basement packed full of garage sale items.  He’s a collector, with a capital C.

He has a museum in his basement: flint arrowheads, artifacts from Central America, glass sun catchers collected by supporters of the Nazi party in Germany, WW2 memorabilia, Valentino Rossi posters, coins, pipes, and a million other things.

What did he bring to the appraisers? An 1876 trade coin that had been modified to open and contained a small hollowed out space, and a spy book with a picture of one just like it on page 19, a fossilized mastadon tooth, and the collar from JOA.  The bear that was presented to the Cubs baseball team at the first game played on Wrigley Field in 1916.  He’s got some pretty cool stuff.

Needless to say, he was the star of the afternoon at the historical society and we spent two hours absolutely engrossed by the stories the appraisers spun out of seemingly garage sale quality items.

Adams & Miller Kids, Punkva Caves & Macocha Abyss, Czech Republic

We brought the average age in the room down by a good twenty years, as our ten kids were the only children in the room and even I was a good thirty years younger than the next youngest attendee!  It was one of those absolutely bizarre and unexpected ways to spend an afternoon that we’ve come to rely on Sam Adams to provide.  It was perfect.

How did his items do?  Well enough that the appraisers declared his bear collar, “the most interesting piece we’ve seen in a month,” and offered to come take a look at his basement.

The only sadness to color the weekend was news of the death of one of the giants of my childhood.  Mike Papineau was the stuff of legends at our house when I was growing up, and he lived up to every bit of it.  An old adventuring buddy of my Dad’s, who they’d met in Central America before I was born, he turned up in dinner table stories, and occasionally in person.

We spent one long winter in Mexico camped together on a stretch of beach where my parents had camped with them years ago, fishing, diving, sitting around palm branch campfires listening to the ocean lap the beach in the darkness.

I remember Mike and Sandi clearing their campsite from the jungle underbrush and unearthing a nest of coral snakes (deadly poisonous) and eating shrimp cocktail in the market after dark.

I remember Sandi poking through tide pools with my brother and I and Mike, who was the best free diver I’ve ever known, actually swimming down a sea turtle and flipping him up into the sailboat for Josh and I to play with.  I was eight.

He told tall tales, worthy of his mythological status and had a laugh big enough to shake a smile out of anyone within hearing distance.

I remember staying in his cave house, which he and Sandi built, in the rolling hills of Iowa years later and riding a horse along his country road.

Mike & Sandi Papineau

He was an adventurer in the truest sense of the word and an Atlas who continues to hold up a part of my belief in a world where a person can go his own way, live a life of epic adventure and carve a path of his own choosing through history, making the world a better place simply by being who he was created to be. I hope with all of my heart that he finds his next adventure to be even greater than the one he shared with us.

The sky is a flawless sapphire this morning. The van is quiet as the children plug away at their school work on a Sunday morning, buying free time with their friends later in the week. I’ve got a solid twelve hours ahead of me in which to ruminate, write, and knit around the heel of the pair of socks I’m making for Tony in a creamy white alpaca.

It is on mornings like this, with the open road stretched before us, on a day hemmed in with dear friends, that I feel most alive and most thankful for the choices we’ve made and the life we’ve carved out of our little corner of the universe.