The Element of Danger

I have ten nieces and nephews.  They mean the world to me, and might as well be my own kids in the way I feel about them.  My 14 year old nephew has been reading my blog and has informed me that while he thinks it is okay, it needs an element of danger.  This one is for you, Andrew!

I am not an adrenaline junkie by any stretch of the imagination.  One of my major goals in life is to avoid the emergency room at all costs.  Typically the most dangerous thing I do is cooking and I have actually required stitches in the same thumb twice.  The two most dangerous things I have ever done were on my honeymoon. 

We went to Jamaica for our honeymoon.  My sister had warned against doing this as she had a bad experience on her honeymoon, but at that stage I would never listen to her.  We went to a Sandals Resort in Montego Bay.  One of the activities we did was to climb up Dunn's River Falls. 

It goes against every law of nature and physics to walk UP a waterfall.  First they made you wear special water shoes.  I should have turned back then.  I was forced to put my bare feet in wet, clammy shoes that had been worn by God knows how many people before me.  Bowling shoes make me shiver, these almost made me gag.  If we had not spent a ton of money on this there would be no way I would have done this.

Second, the rocks you had to walk across were really slippery and kind of sharp.  One of the ways they combated this was to have you hold the hand of the person ahead of you and behind you.  Dave, being the consummate gentleman that he always is, let me go first.  Either way I had to hold a stranger's hand, and as it has been documented many times before, I am a germaphobe.  We are in what amounts to be a third world country and from the looks of the people wandering around, hygiene was not top on some of these people's lists.  I have barely made it past the whole shoe thing and now I had to hold hands with a stranger all the way UP a waterfall. 

I am readying myself to do this, wondering how the brochure made this sound so fun when I was wearing pre-used water shoes, sweating in the hot Jamaican sun, holding strangers hands while climbing up slippery and sharp rocks.  I couldn't believe we had paid so much money to do this, and I couldn't really complain because I was the one that had suggested this activity.  I go to reach up to hold this guy's hand only to realize that he only has ONE ARM.  I kid you not, he only had one arm, and the other one, the one I was supposed to hold stopped at his elbow. 

What is a girl to do?  I was kind of wondering if God was smiling on me or laughing at me.  After making it to the top it was really fun and amazingly beautiful.  I am glad we did it, but I am sure that I will never go to Jamaica again.  I am equally sure that I would have rather been reading a book by the side of the pool or on the beach drinking one of the delicious orange flavored vodka drinks at one of the many bars at our resort.  I learned two things about myself that day. If something weird is going to happen, it will happen to me.  The second thing is that I don't care where I am in the world.  If there is the opportunity to sit and read a book in a peaceful setting, or the option to do something outside in either hot or cold temperatures, the book will always win.