Fears

It is said that you should face your fears and I set out to do just that.  While it is true that I have many fears that I will someday have to face it was my fear of bats and confined spaces that I would attempt to overcome this past weekend.  And a funny thing happened in this fear facing journey; I discovered that neither one of those fears bothered nearly as much as something I hadn't given much consideration.  The fear of falling and busting either my bum, breaking my camera or more importantly my pride bothered me more than anything.  The floors in the cavern were wet in spots and since the floor was uneven and sloped in places the added moisture caused  people to slip all over the place.  No one actually fell but I feared that I would be the "one" that would fall and be spread out all over the place; camera in God knows what hole, legs over my head and all of the things in my purse spread over the entire floor that kept me from completing the tour.  Not completing the tour would normally have caused me to feel like a worthless loser but I wasn't alone in my decision to cop out on the tour, my niece Kara was right there with me on this one.  The two of us sat at the top of the tour, laughed and sat in silence and had just an all over good time in our own little world.  The greatest decision we made that day was to go ahead and take ourselves back to the end of the tour and wait for the guide in the light because as we went down the declining path Kara took a slip which sparked on a bout of laughter from the two of us that nearly caused us both to pea our pants right there and I am so glad that we did not have an audience for that.   

 As you can see we came pretty close to random bats and one even flew between us as we were entering the caverns and I didn't do my usual drop to the ground and total spaz out freak attack.

As you can see the path is leading to a rather tight fitting space and still I ventured on.

It was this along with some other things that caused much laughter, and I don't think I need to explain why.

It was having made it out of there that caused me great joy!!  I felt a sense of accomplishment even though I didn't complete the entire tour I had experienced enough to know that I had looked my fears in the eye and I came out the winner.