Roaming With My Buffalo

I decided to do something daring before I turned 30. Editing the travel stories submitted to the magazine I worked at was entertaining, sure, but made me long for my own adventure. So a month before my 29th birthday I quit my job, flew one-way to North America, bought a Chevy Suburban, and drove it across half the country — twice. Billy, here, was my only company. His four feet gently swayed over the grasses and bitumen and hillsides that stretched out before me, rendering every landscape one where the buffalo — my solitary, two-dimensional buffalo — roamed.

I’ve since sold my adventure vehicle and returned to Australia. Whenever I see Billy the bison, hanging between to-do lists and photos on the corkboard above my desk, I can’t help but recall the heart-piercing sun rising over a Nevada skyline, and the only adventure buddy I could look to to say, “Wow.”

Adventure seeking isn’t something I can turn off — it’s tattoed onto my soul. No amount of pandemics, lockdowns, responsibilities, threats of global war or climate crises can ever really laser-remove that ink. At least, I hope not.

Photo taken 14th March, 2017, about 30 miles east of Eureka, Nevada.