You know how after you do something physically challenging you feel really, really great about yourself? Especially when it’s one of those “conquer the fear” types of things?
I have to say that skydiving in Deland, Florida, was definitely one of those challenges that scared me silly, but also made me feel afterwards like shouting, “I am woman, hear me roar!” (Giving birth and learning how to scuba dive in open water rank up there, too.)
I didn’t realize that visiting a tourist attraction in the White Mountains of New Hampshire would give me that same rush, but it did!
As a kid growing up in New England, my parents took me to the Lost River Gorge & Boulder Caves in North Woodstock, NH. I distinctly remember whining, “So, we’re gonna follow a river to nowhere? I don’t get it! It sounds boring.” Instead, once we got there, I realized we’d be walking down wooden steps and boardwalks into a lush, steep-walled gorge filled with all of these cool caves you could crawl through — not boring at all!
But back then, I was too chicken to squeeze through the ultra-narrow opening in one cave, called, appropriately, the “Lemon Squeezer.” Why I didn’t think my stick-thin, 10-year-old body could fit, I don’t know.
Memories of my failed attempt to enter the Lemon Squeezer flooded my brain as I took my kids to the Lost River Gorge on our annual trip “back East” last week.
Those fearless kids (ages six and eight) crept, shimmed and climbed into dark holes and up rustic, wooden ladders in caverns with creepy names like, “Shadow Cave,” “Devil’s Kitchen” and “Dungeon.” Either their uncle or I usually followed them along. (My sixty-something mother wanted nothing to do with the adventure; to her credit, it was really wet in those caves from recent rains, and we got pretty dirty, so she stuck to the well-maintained main trail.)
When we arrived at the Lemon Squeezer, there was a gauge — seemingly about 16 inches wide — through which you had to squish yourself, in order to see if you could make it through the actual Squeezer. I made it past the “test,” but when another tourist — a teenage girl — started flipping out as she had to descend through the first narrow pass, crying out that she was hyperventilating and couldn’t do it… well then I started hyperventilating and saying i couldn’t do it.
A nice young guide, instead, took the kids through the Squeezer — there was no way my husky (!), 36-year-old brother was going to fit through without a lot of pain. No problem, reported the kids!
That’s when I was like, “C’mon, Kara. You can do this. If you don’t do it now, you’ll never try it again. No more failed attempts!”
So, I said, “Screw the fear! I’m not going to die in a tourist-attraction cave!” And I did it.
Seriously, making my way through that narrow opening, crawling on my belly on wet wooden boards, and maneuvering around the cave in the dark was as satisfying as finishing a sprint-distance triathlon. I am woman, hear me roar.
