Oddly enough, the hardest part of being fearless is keeping your pride in balance. When we start becoming more and more fearless, we also have the human tendency to become arrogant. We enter into battle with the things that scare us and after conquering them it's only fair to want to flaunt our newfound skill. The real paradigm lies within the equation that as our fear decreases, our pride increases. Should our pride increase too quickly, we find ourselves back into the same fears creating a catch twenty-two. How many times can you get knocked down a hill before you stop trying to climb back up?

My awesome friend, Marcus out in Lincoln. Scooping up simply the dopest ice cream!

When we learn to harness our pride, we can become unstoppable. My second night of camping was off Happy Jack Road in Laramie, Wyoming. The name was so spot on. I had spent the day visiting an old friend in Lincoln, Nebraska trying out some of his bad-ass ice cream flavors at Ivanna Cone. He showed off the shop's three frankenstein-esque machines used to slow churn the ice cream bases. These things were the most incredible beasts. I made much more concise plans for camping in the evening and after a pretty positive day, I was in a good place to build camp and get some rest.

I read about the campsite at McDonald's while I crushed a Big Mac. I am on a road trip, people. Feeling satisfied with food and with ample daylight, I ran into a grocery store and bought a few items to make a cast iron dinner. Not that I had ever done this before and not that this wasn't my second night ever camping by myself.

The road to the campsite was off the same exit as a memorial to Abraham Lincoln; I had been driving I-80 for a part of the day and he historically created this highway to enable cross-country travel. As I pulled up, a towering Abraham Lincoln greeted me carved from stone. I used the rest stop to freshen up and get rid of my trash. This had become another of my cherished daily routines. After wandering down Happy Jack Road, I turned on to Forest Road 703 BA. The dust billowed from behind my car and I rolled up onto a scene straight out of a western. The campsite was on a cliff that overlooked a vast horizon of deep reds and oranges marred with scraggly brush. Two RV's were set-up with generators and much friendlier looking glowing windows.

I confidently and proudly pitched a tent, unfolded my camp chair and tossed my personal effects into my new home. Without hesitation, I started gathering rocks and forming a fire circle. I had really entered survival mode at this point. I piled in kindling, dry grass and leaves. I stacked wood around the brush and created a sad teepee. I sparked a lighter and set my tiny, organic fire starter ablaze. Moving briskly, I hurried the ember into the dry brush in my brand new fire circle and watched as the leaves and hay crumpled and turned back into the carbon they once were. The wood slowly caught and I had built a fire. I had built a fucking fire.

(To sidebar pretty quickly, into a subtle PSA, I have tried on many occasions to start fires and to manage grills. Men... please stop pushing us aside. We're very good at making fires.)

I felt fluid. I felt as if my actions were slowly less about practical thought and more about doing what felt right next. I had put no thought in preparation about how this would come together. I started piecing together my dinner for the night without fear and with confidence and healthy pride. I roasted a jalapeno on the rocks as I watched the husk around the corn char in the orange flames. I placed a flat rock in the ring and added a small cast iron skillet. After it preheated, I dropped in shallot, carrot, garlic and whole cherry tomatoes with some olive oil and salt. After getting some caramel-color on my veggies, I deglazed with chicken broth. I had invested in a few juice box size containers of broth for the trip (this was wise). Once the corn was roasted, I carved off the sweet kernels and diced up the smoky jalapeno. In a plastic, washable cup, I mixed up chickpea flour with chicken broth until it formed a pancake batter consistency. One last toss of my veggies in oil and I poured the batter over everything and immediately covered it in foil. After a few minutes, I peeled back the foil to find the cake was fully cooked and pulling away from the pan. I flipped it out of its cast iron onto a plate and sat by the fire eating an insanely delicious, savory pancake.

Words make all of that seem so beautiful. It wasn't. It was a grown woman crouched around a fire tending to vegetables as they bite her with tiny molecules of hot fat. A slightly dirty, cut-off jean wearing hippie chopping on a tiny cutting board with a paring knife while I slumped back into my camp chair. Nothing about this was sexy. It was insanely barbaric and natural. I felt powered by the fire. Inspired by its flames. I felt strong. Confident. Proud.

When I woke up in the morning, I discovered I had been camping this whole time on top of a US Airmail Beacon. Pilots had used these to guide the mail service across the country previous to GPS technology. Being the nerd that I am, this was extremely exciting to me. Can you imagine being responsible for guiding a still very newly-invented craft across a massive country using only arrows on the ground below? It seemed fitting for this specific night of camping to happen on my journey. Somehow, everything about the previous 20-24 hours had gone surprisingly smooth. As I returned to the Lincoln Memorial and struck a few yoga poses on the floor of the empty visitor's center, I reflected on how careless and enjoyable the time had been. I felt re-energized. My pride was at an all time high as a camper and traveler. Little did I know, the next time that I cooked in the wild I would fall right back down the hill.

Over the next couple of days, I visited the Spiral Jetty (don't worry we'll come back to it) and the Golden Spike National Historic Site. I camped next to the highway for a quick sleep before tackling the northern side of Nevada and pulling into a good friend's driveway in California. He expressed interest in venturing out to Yosemite. Obviously feeling pretty comfortable in my outdoor abilities, I quickly accepted. We had an incredible time. When we first got to the park we stocked up on some goods and drove up to Glacier Point in time to catch the last rays of sunshine disappearing beneath the mountainous horizon. As the darkness crept in, we watched in awe from hundreds of feet above the valley floor as each campsite came alive. Below us, a sea of campfires reflected the stars of the night sky. Everything we saw was magical and picturesque. I created memories at Yosemite that I will cherish forever. I also talked a huge game about how awesome I was at cooking with fire and bragged on the meal I would make when we settled in for the night.

Driving through rocks & stuff. Normal Yosemite magic.

You've been waiting so patiently and now for the moment you've all been waiting for...

It turns out that when you decide to combine a copious amount of California's widely-appreciated delicacies with trying to camp and cook, you may entirely fail. Especially if you idiotically decide to not follow dosage instructions. If you combine this with waiting until the sky is completely dark to figure out where to camp, you may have a bad time. What ensued was a breakdown of better judgment both clouded by pride and the vaguely brave yet, certainly silly choice to incorrectly consume edibles. I had successfully camped in my own tent and not my car for one night. This was enough for me to feel very competent in my abilities as a camper. Oh boy.

Somehow, we got camp set up. Somehow we did it with the most beautiful view possible. Somehow I managed to use a propane burner to cook the worst meal I had the entire trip. Cous cous with sambal and mire a poix is not dinner. The saving grace was the killer steak dinner I made the night before at my friend's home. He knew I could cook, but bless his heart for choking this mess down. As the domino chips began to fall, the previously ingested cookie got the best of me and became human-stomach-rejected-bear-bait. In layman's terms, I tossed my cookies. In Yosemite. Next to the most beautiful scene I had ever slept next to with 6 trillion stars staring down on me. My poor friend destroyed the evidence with some water and got me to sleep.

That's not what friend's are supposed to be for. But they are for waking your butt up before dawn to watch the sunrise so that's what we did. As the sun began dousing the world with light and color, we quickly sought out a quiet picnic spot to take extremely rewarding naps. After the sun was fully up and I was finally awake, it was time for redemption. He had cast no judgement on my faux-pas of the night before, but I knew I had to make up for my immature decisions. Luckily, we had brought some of the leftover, local hanger steak and picked up eggs and sweet potatoes from the store. Cautiously, without being an arrogant shithead, I cranked out a perfect campfire (well, wood-fire picnic BBQ) steak and eggs breakfast. I once again feared the concept of not making a good meal by fire. I would not always perfectly execute a fantastic meal without a care in the world. I had to accept my imperfections and accept that my arrogance had gotten the best of me. I felt stronger because of it and returned to having the time of my life. I was able to return to simply enjoying the vast stretches of pine trees and reaching peaks that surrounded us in this majestic national park.

Maybe this wasn't the anecdote you expected to explain pride. "Girl eats too much of a magical cookie and makes her dear friend eat horrible food before yakking". Not exactly the headline I wanted either. Regardless, the point is I cooked one great meal by fire and believed I was the new goddess of flame. As if everything I placed on the embers would immediately turn into some ridiculous magazine-worthy meal. Dream on, girl.

Had I just focused on enjoying my time with an old friend, I might have overcome new fears. I might have enjoyed the stars more. I might have felt more satisfied than eating an incredible meal. Maybe I should have taken his advice and made one of those horrible freeze-dried meals for the night. I was simply too proud and too ignorant.

Fear and pride are the criminals of failed success.

Your fears and your ego are not meant to battle. They're meant to balance. We have fear and we have pride because together they make us the intelligible people that we can be. When one overpowers the other, we're out of balance and we can easily fall down again. Once we learn how to appreciate and respect both harmoniously, we become stronger than ever before. In the words of Kendrick Lamar,

"Be humble, sit down."

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More stories are coming soon... The Adventure posts will go live on Mondays.