Sacramento

Ever since his grandfather brought him to Yellowstone when he was 14, Frederick was destined to be an outdoorsman. He envied the backpackers trekking up cliffs and stumbling through forests while he watched as a young boy from the back of a stuffy nature tour bus.

He returned home from that childhood vacation filled with a newfound desire to explore, but life took him by the waist. During the weekends, he would smoke hash with his friends and hang out with his girlfriend. The mountains were far away, anyway. But now that he was 46, on the tail end of his physical prime, he had one last opportunity to go on his dream trip and share it with his family.

When he first explained the trip—a summer road trip to Zion, then the Rocky Mountains, then the Grand Canyon—to his wife, Serena, she was very happy and said, “Wow, that sounds wonderful.”

The next day, she was less pleased when he fleshed out the finer points with his old life companion—the four day backpacking trips, the level seven white water canoe trips. Despite a little bit of screaming, and a lot more pleading, Serena did not relent.

That night, in the sweltering dark of their bedroom in rural Sacramento, Fredrick sat up in bed, thinking of the trip and its promises. He looked out the window and onto the sprawling landscape of houses and long, straight road while letting out a little moan.

“What are you doing?” Serena said from the other side of the bed.

Fredrick lowered his head slowly back onto the soft, off-white memory foam pillow. He rolled to his right side and looked at his bedside table. A copy of Into the Wild lay there silently in the dark. A tear silently streamed down his face. He thought, Why doesn't she understand?