She Thinks She”s Underground

Have you ever stood looking at a hill and wondered what it would be like for the creatures that live inside it? Or maybe you were a fan of Fraggle Rock and wondered what life was really like for them. Yesterday, I found out. Sort of. I’m just finishing up a fantastic weekend with my cousin here in California. She works for the Parks Department and decided to take Alicia and I to visit one of the parks she used to work at. While we were there they had a couple openings for their mine tour so we decided to check it out. It was awesome! I’ve never actually been inside an abandoned mine before and it was really cool to see firsthand what one looks like. We walked in, donned a rocking hard hat and took off on an adventure. The mine had been used during 2 different eras, once for coal mining and the most recent for sand mining. It was quite fascinating to check out the various areas and I was quite amazed at all the things I saw. But one thing made it way better…the guide.

This guy talked non-stop for 90 minutes about the history, the type of people that worked there, how the mining was done, etc. He made the tour come alive in a way that just walking through it would never have done. I can’t count the number of museums that I’ve walked through over the years that I was bored to death of in the first 60 seconds. Having someone with perspective can make all the difference in the world for what you get out of an experience.

A little over a year ago, my brother-in-law came to town so we decided to play some frisbee golf. We headed down to the only course I had seen and attempted to play with some cheapo frisbees my wife had picked up at the dollar store. I was ready to be done after the first couple throws. It was awful. A couple months later I went to Alaska for Christmas and my brother took us out to play. It rocked big time! The difference was he was a junkie. He played almost every weekend with his friends and had all the right gear and knew how to play. Ever since then, I’ve really gotten into it. I’ve played almost every Saturday since May and I love it now. It’s great, but I would never have found any joy in it if it wasn’t for my brother.

If you really want to find out if you like a sport or not, find someone who loves it. Don’t try out soccer, or basketball, or jump rope with someone that hates playing or has never done it before. Find someone who loves it and try it with them. They’re more than happy to teach you how to play and they’ll go out of their way to make sure you have the best time doing it. If you don’t like something after that, don’t go again. Make sure you give exercise a fighting chance before you try. I’ve met so many people that say they hate exercising and they’d rather sit around and do nothing than climb on a treadmill. I’m with you, I hate running! Instead, I’ve found a load of exercises that I love to do and I can’t wait to get out there and do them.

Try something new this week. Ask around and see if there’s something that you can do that you’ve never tried. Just make sure that you don’t go underground with a claustraphobic, you’ll hate the experience just because of them. Bite the bullet and give it a shot, you may find that there’s something out there with your name written all over it.