Into The Wild

I just finished reading the best seller Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer, the true story of
a wealthy college grad who renounces money and possessions to live off the land. His odyssey leads him to the wilds of the Alaska bush where he befriends an Alaskan Bear who ultimately stabs him in the back and eats him. (I actually haven't read the last chapter so I'm not sure how he dies. Death by vicious Bear mauling seems the most likely conclusion.)
Anyway, I couldn't help but notice the parallels between the protagonist Chris McCandless and myself. In the summer of '82 my folks and I departed Omaha for a week long adventure in the Black Hills, SD. One evening as the sun dipped down below the mighty tree line and the sky turned an inky black I became disoriented and lost my way back to our cabin. Suddenly a tiny red pulsating light grabbed my attention. I moved toward the light cautiously. It was my dad -- dragging on a Merit Light. Turns out I had been circling the same fir tree over and over for seven minutes...all the while I was but 15 feet from our cabin. Man -1, Nature - 0.