Young George Washington watched as his two older half-brothers left their native Virginia to go to school in England. He always thought he’d follow in their footsteps, but then their father died when George was eleven. Now George would have to stay home and help his mother run the family farm. That wasn’t the kind of life George wanted for himself, not at all.

Luckily for George, another person in his life had higher aspirations for him. His half-brother Lawrence was fourteen years older and an officer in the British army. George looked up to Lawrence. He was impressed by the officer’s uniform, the gleaming scabbard at his side, and the dignified way he carried himself. Lawrence looked at his younger sibling and saw a miniature version of himself. With a little polishing, he thought, this rough-hewn farm boy could someday become an officer too.

In the summer of 1746, Lawrence arranged for George to sign on as a midshipman in the British Navy. George couldn’t have been more excited. He packed his sea bag and hurried out the door to report to his ship.

Then his mother stepped in …

“Absolutely not,” Mary Washington said. No son of hers was going away to sea, especially when she needed his help on the farm. She ordered George to unpack his bag and instructed Lawrence to find him a job closer to home.

George was devastated by his mother’s decision. Now it seemed he would never leave the safety of the plantation. He moped around, dreaming of far-off places like the ones Lawrence had visited, convinced that he would never follow in his older brother’s footsteps.

Then Lawrence came through with another brainstorm. His wealthy in-laws had purchased a parcel in the western Virginia wilderness, and they were sending about a dozen men to map the land. With his love of the outdoors and knack for mathematics, George was the perfect choice to help with the task.

George couldn’t believe his good fortune. This mission might be even better than a sea voyage. All the adventure, all the camaraderie, but with zero chance of drowning—or so he figured. And because he would be gone for only thirty days, never even leaving Virginia soil, his mother could not object.

The expedition started out quietly enough. George recorded all of his observations in a small notebook that he’d titled “A Journal of My Journey over the Mountains.” “Nothing remarkable happened,” he observed on the second day of his journey. He spent most of the third day admiring the beautiful sugar trees that dotted the Virginia wilderness. For the next month, George kept an extensive diary, writing down every detail of his trek through the Virginia frontier.

With every passing day, the journey became more challenging. One night George discovered his bed was full of lice, fleas, and ticks.

Right then and there, George resolved to spend the rest of the expedition sleeping outside, in the open air, beside a campfire.

The very next day, it began to rain.

About a week in to the survey, the downpours were so bad that the Potomac River crested six feet higher than usual. George and his companions were forced to swim their horses to the other side. They emerged from the brackish water soaked to the bone.

The next day, the surveyors continued their trip by canoe as another torrential storm buffeted them from the heavens. Finally, at about two o’clock in the afternoon, the skies cleared. That’s when the Indians arrived.

There were about thirty of them, and George was terrified. He had never encountered a Native American war party before. What would they do? How would he defend himself if they were attacked? As the Indian visitors came closer, George realized they were more interested in dancing than fighting. The “war party” cleared a large circle and built a big fire in the center. Then they gathered around the fire and began to dance. A drummer kept the beat on a pot of water with a deerskin stretched tightly over top. George had never seen anything like it—and it was totally different than he had expected.

George would have many such experiences in his remaining days on the surveying expedition. He hunted wild turkeys, learned to cook over an open campfire, and even encountered his first “rattled snake.”

When the expedition came to an end, George returned home convinced that the life of the outdoors was the life for him. The other members of the expedition had grown to like George. They spoke highly of him to other people, and eventually the lieutenant governor of Virginia invited George to join the militia. It was the begining of a long and glorious military career.

Many years later, as general of the armies in the American colonies’ struggle for independence, George Washington led a small band of Revolutionary soldiers across the frozen Delaware River. He and his bedraggled men were forced to hunker down in makeshift huts during a long, wet Pennsylvania winter. These dangerous missions would have tested the mettle of even the greatest commander. But Washington was well prepared to survive such adversity because of the time he had spent as a boy on the wild Virginia frontier.