I sit on the window of this huge Ram truck named “Beastie" as we fly down a dusty dirt road, clinging onto a handle on the inside of the truck. Forrest’s hair whips back towards me, as he sits just a foot or two ahead on the front passenger window. My brother Jeff sits behind the wheel with a crazed look in his eye, blasting “Born to be Wild” on the trucks absurdly loud sound system. The sun sets behind us in all of its gold laden glory. Dr. Fray, followed closely by his son Jordan, lead us down this never ending trail towards our camp for the night, riding their badass all terrain motorcycles. We don’t know if camp is 5 miles or 500 miles away, and we truly couldn’t care less about it. Forest looks at me with one of those big smiles he tends to get, and rips his shirt of in one smooth motion, waving it around his head. I follow suit.
I take a moment to scan the horizon for any features that stand out; a mountain, river, canyon, forest, anything. It looks to me as if someone just hit copy and paste on the ridge that we are riding and pasted the same terrain on every square mile of land for dozens of miles in every direction. We collectively let out a Peter Pan cry that I am sure the Frays can hear over the roar of their engines.
We are so helplessly lost. If the Fray’s were to die suddenly, I’m sure we’d wander aimlessly for days. But this is just what we were looking for, so we let go of all of the stresses we’ve been carrying since 'Nam and just accept our new identity: Lost Boys. And Beastie Boys. And Bushi Bushi.