Humans are strange creatures. Very strange. Think about it. We say we don’t like real life danger, yet we spend time in front of the television watching Most Shocking or Most Daring (I do), or we thrill to the danger in an Indiana Jones movie or the psychological scare of Disturbia (love that movie.) Some of us take it a step further and actually sign up for the white-knuckle experience of skydiving, base-jumping, rock climbing, or white water rafting. Truth is that most of us want the excitement to be vicarious. Take me. When I was a little kid, I was a girly girl. On the playground, I would say to the kid hanging on the monkey bars, “You’re gonna fall off that.” What happened? The kid would fall off. I felt vindicated.
It wasn’t until about ’85, when I joined my local archaeological society, that I started to have relatively safe adventures, and I loved it. About the worst it could get would be heat exhaustion, sunburn and tangling with rattlesnakes. One scene in The Mummy Returns parallels my archaeological life. Remember the scene where Evie discovers a snake crawling across her boot? That really did happen to me. I looked down and there was this small dark snake crawling over my boot and my automatic reaction was the same as Evie’s. I simply swung my foot and flipped the snake away. For a minute I thought maybe I’d imagined it, and probably no one would have believed me if they hadn’t seen me do it. Heck, now that I live in the desert Southwest (I was in Colorado when I had the boot slinging snake experience), I have seen more snakes, poisonous and otherwise, than I want to see. Still, the archaeology continued to be awesome in Colorado and was awesome when I found a new group in the Southwest.
One adventure I’ll never forget, though, came when my hubby and I ventured to Edinburgh, Scotland (we lived in England at the time) in the 90’s. We wanted to see New Year’s Eve celebrations. Now we’re not that fond of big crowds of any type, so we should have realized that 250,000 people in a small space would prove overwhelming. We had a few hours to wander around in the city in the central area including the Royal Mile. That was great except for the cold and the hoards of over toasted party goes.
After the beautiful fireworks display presented from the top of Edinburgh Castle (still the best fireworks I’ve seen to date), we headed down the hill. We’d linked arms securely because of the huge crush of people. We quickly discovered that wouldn’t do the trick. The throng pushed in on all sides but it threatened to separate us. My hubby wrapped his arms around me from behind and held tight as he sort of maneuvered us like a big spider through the crowd. Basically he feared losing me in the mess of people, and I feared loosing him. We could have met up back at the tour bus, but it still would have been intimidating to say the least.
I did have another adventure in Edinburgh the night BEFORE this all happened, but I figure that is for another blog. Maybe next week. Speaking of adventures, I’ve seen the trailer for the Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman movie Australia which comes out in November. Now that looks like a great combo for a historical action/adventure and romance. Can’t wait for it!
So tell me about your real life adventures!
May 29th, 2008 at 6:19 am
Hi Denise,
Just wanted to say I LOVE Disturbia, too. It’s one of my absolute favorite movies, just because of the way it bends together so many genres.
Stacey
May 29th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Denise A. Agnew
May 29th, 2008 at 7:27 am
I’ve done quite a few things that would surprise most people who know me but there’s one time I most. . . love? Am proud of? Not sure how to phrase it but it’s the event I smile most at when I think of it.
I was in training for the US Army and we were rappelling. My Drill Sergeant called me up to the front of the line, past a good half dozen other soldiers, and started adjusting my swami harness in a way I’d never seen before. “You’re going to go Aussie style. You good with that?”
“What’s Aussie style, Drill Sergeant?”
“Face first.”
Gulp. There was just something in the way he presented it, like of course I was going to go face first off a 50 foot tower. No problem.
I did it. My form was awful, I got a horrible rope burn, and my legs were so rubbery afterwards I could hardly stand up. But it was a thrill on so many levels. I was the only female to do it, and only two guys (out of about 150) got up the courage.
May 29th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Denise A. Agnew
May 29th, 2008 at 7:54 am
Lorelie, huge kudos on having the ovaries to do that–score one for women!
Denise, I’m envious as all get out of you–I wanna go on a dig! /wail
My scariest experience is actually very tame. First and only time in Europe (ten years ago, where’s the time gone? We land at Frankfort Airport and I take the train to Koblenz (for a 4-week summer German class).
I have no German to speak off, and my English is quite shaky still, but I’m confident I can do this. Hello, I’ve lived in four countries! I speak *coughsortacough* four languages!
I get on the train, dragging two huge pieces of luggage with me. I sit there listening intently to the loudspeakers–all German all the time, nacht–while the train stops for two minutes (to the second, people, this is Germany) at each station. What seems like minutes later, we are in Switzerland.
Traveling on a Mexican passport, I don’t even know if I need a visa to enter the country, and I have literally no cash on me, and it’s Sunday, and…
By the time I get off the train, I don’t remember my name, and I can’t any other language but fast paced panicked Mexican Spanish.
Thankfully, the guys at the station on the border seem to see this same thing happen to summer students from the US all the time. They just patted my shoulder, and kindly led me to train leaving back to Germany.
Yeah, I still feel like a total idiot over it
May 29th, 2008 at 9:04 am
My best adventure was when I went to Bermuda on my own for a holiday when I was 22. I had a place to stay, with my older brother’s friend who I hadn’t seen in years, but because he was working most of the week, I was on my own.
It was fantastic. One of the most soulful adventures I’d ever been on. I met some wonderful people, Bermudans rock! And had a great time. I remember getting stranded on the beach in the evening during high tide and Portugese ManoWar covered the entire length of sand. We had to climb up the rock face to get out of there. And one of our party was so drunk she’d passed out. So we had to carry her. LOL
Good times!!
May 29th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Aztec Lady! How are you doing? When I went to Ireland in ‘83 I was young and stupid in some ways and smart in others. I didn’t go all by myself. I was with a tour group. My roomate, though, was an ex-nun with a thirst for adventure. She was much older than me and probably realized what a babe in the woods I was. I was sooooo chicken about going out in the Irish world by myself, so I did miss some opportunities to see things why the ex-nun was running around doing things and exploring on her own. That trip was the best of times and the worst of times. I hope to see Ireland again some day. I should have gone again while I was living in England, dang it!!!
Denise A. Agnew
May 29th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Vivi, it sounds like you were a heck of a lot more adventuresome than I was at that age.
Sounds like you had a little thrill of danger there, too. 
Denise A. Agnew
May 30th, 2008 at 4:21 am
Hi Denise
Aa an author I guess you will always be looking for new ideas - and don’t they always hit you when you least expect them?
Glad you enjoyed exploring Edinburgh. I expect you hadn’t heard of Walk Talk Tours, the audio tours you download to your iPod or MP3 player. They are full of stories of famous (and infamous) residents who enrich a city’s history. We’ve got them in London, Edinburgh and York - and Manchester’s coming soon.
Ideal for a writer’s inspiration. Please check us out.