BUT I'M ALREADY THERE...

So I initially wondered where I would go to complete this task. I was already in a nowhere suburban town in the middle of the Illinois/Wisconsin border surrounded by nothing but endless miles of suburban homes, golf courses, and farms. However there were a few patches of total nothing within our modern wasteland which I have long wanted to explore. Large swaths of nature like the kind you play in as a small child for hours. Such a place I had noticed while driving 60 mph down a local road in the past. It’s an open field which is apparently a nature preserve next to a small airport with a single runway. That’s probably the only reason old white people aren’t teeing off there right now.
GEARING UP

I recruited Survival Rate Ø and another friend who shall be referred to as Rat Man for now. We have yet to entice Rat Man to create a profile on SFØ because he claims he can level up and gain points in his head. I was driving and we parked in the street of a nearby neighborhood more or less on some random person’s front lawn. We had packed a few items for our journey: our old friend the aluminum baseball bat (acquired long ago at Play it Again Sports for the explicit reason of beating the #*^$ out of stuff), the apocalypse axe (fashioned by Survival Rate out of the thing on the inside of your car that rolls your windows up and down, also for beating the &*^#$ out of stuff), a hammock (belonging to survival rate, on the premise he could find trees to set it up and nap in the middle of nowhere), and some golf clubs (I originally planned to visit one of the golf courses to ‘requisition’ some balls to drive off into the abyss a la Fight Club, we were too short on time however).
ENTERING THE ZONE

We did our best to not look too incredulous while carrying an array of blunt object weapons, but we turned a few heads. Thankfully no one was self-righteous enough to call the cops. We soon encountered a pumpkin and an unopened package of Ritz© crackers, which were promptly used for the world’s shortest game of baseball. While walking we found a boundary sign, which we took a picture of and then intrepidly passed, LIKE A BOSS.
We had no idea where we were going exactly, it was kind of implied we would continue walking until things stopped getting less civilized. We soon happened upon the barrier to Neverland; the creek of liquid based fear. It was about 15 feet wide, too far to leg it and jump. It was also permanently between us and our new objective: the hill. So we had to find a way across it. Walking down the bank we found some rocks which were in a configuration in which we could cross. Survival Rate went across first with the understanding that I was currently carrying about $1600 worth of expensive electronics on my person and in my backpack, which was also loaded with Survival Rate’s hammock. After Survival Rate made it across I managed to cross with all the delicate items in one piece. At this point Rat Man decided that it was too dangerous for him to cross, even though he wasn’t carrying anything. There was the remains of some sort of building by the creek, assuming concrete reinforced steel rebar is not naturally occurring, so I set about picking up giant pieces of concrete and positioning them in the creek to make it more appealing while Survival Rate and Rat Man set off to see if there was another option. I had struggled about 10 slabs into the creek when I started freezing from water contact. It’s probably worth noting that the small lake next the creek, filled with static water, was frozen. I wondered where my team had gone; surely they would come back on the other bank if they had found a way across…
STORMING MOUNT DOOM

Screw this; I’m going to find them. Sure enough, there they were sitting on this side of the creek just waiting for me. They had discovered a long 2 x 4 that they used to cross. This 2 x 4 will henceforth be known as the ‘pansy crossing’ by me. Slightly irked, we pressed on. We followed some deer paths up out of the riverbed onto a plateau where we encountered the world’s first invisible fence. It was just a bunch of poles lined up with no wire. After pondering this for a while, Survival Rate got his invisible wire cutters out and we passed through. There was a hill upon the plateau so we decided on that for our final destination. I whipped out my phone, which told me according to GPS we were just about at the middle. We stormed mount doom as I shall call it and turned around to gaze upon the plains of nothing and watched a maroon sunset burn its way across the sky. From there we could see all the surrounding towns and about 5 different water towers might have been the highest place in Crystal Lake. At this point the camera ran out of battery (oops my bad) so I switched to the camcorder to document our trip back. So the video is us returning to from whence we came and includes the best parts.
THE RETURN

Notably we discussed (argued) our favorite apocalypses and encountered Stonehenge. It was a strangely placed arrangement of large rocks, the kind you buy, they weren’t taken from the local area. Also strangely, this area was covered in grass, not the various other plants that blanketed the zone of nowhere we came from. The rocks were arranged in a circle configuration, but there was no fire pit in the middle. We decided that it was a ritual ground used by a cult of underground suburban wiccans. It was getting dark fast, and the already low temperature was plummeting. We found that there was an actual trail leading from Stonehenge back to the general direction our car, so we decided to see where it went. Along the way we encountered a wild plastic ball and had the world’s shortest game of moving kickball before returning the ball back to its natural habitat. The trail emptied out onto our street, and had a sign in front of it that said “Trail Closed.” We scoffed at authority and then piled back into the car, successful. Total time was about 2 hours.
Conclusion: There is more awesome out there waiting to be discovered than you think and adventuring by foot is time intensive but rewarding. Who knows what you will find to enjoy later. There is no such thing as too old for a good day of exploring, never stop adventuring, never stop discovering. There is an unseen world out there waiting for you, let’s do this.