Good old Fashioned Childhood Fun
When was the last time you played in the rain? You know, jumped around, frolicked, slide on the ground, hopped in and out of puddles? Well today, I played in the rain.
The goal was to find the famous caves of Easter Island so I rented a mountain bike and took off for the coast of Easter Island. Similar to Mikey Walsh from “The Goonies,” I searched and searched for this cave as if it was a hidden treasure and low and behold, after hours of riding, I came upon a small hole in the ground that I felt needed to be explored.
So down the hole I slide as my 5’11’’ 180 lb frame barely fit inside this small circumference. The underground path immediately went pitch black and my weak flashlight did about as much to aid my vision as your friends’ legally blind prescription reading glasses. So I moved cautiously forward. Ever so slowly, I walked with one hand near the ground and another above my head, as if to guide me and hold the roof from caving in. After a few minutes of relative crawling, I found light and went towards it as if I was Matt Leinart searching for the goal line on a quarterback sneak at Notre Dame in 2005.
When I came upon this so-called end zone my eyes were blown away as it was like I reached the pearly gates of heaven and the blue, majestic and sparkling ocean was sitting out in front of me.
For approximately an hour I sat and looked out over the Pacific and everything it offered as I had indeed found the long lost cave without having to dodge the pursuit of Mama Fratelli.
After crawling my way back to the mainland, I felt a storm coming in. While these are relatively common I paid it little attention and continued to ride along the coast. That is also when the rain gods reminded me that they are in control and opened up on me for about 20 minutes with as brute force you can imagine. And it was as much fun as I’ve had in the rain in years. Peddling through puddles, jumping over holes, and racing past wild horses I had a constant smile on my face that was hidden by the consistent water and mud being splashed up from the ground.
As the storm ended and my ride came to a close, I can say that today was a day of good old-fashioned childhood fun.
