Want to go to the mall?

Summer time. Just hearing these words brings joy to my soul. Back in the day summer time meant bike racing, fort building, playing at the park at night, kite flying, and many more adventures.

One day in a summer long ago my friend George rode over to my house on a most beautiful afternoon looking for some adventure. As he arrived at my house and we sat around for a while he suddenly proclaimed “Want to go to the mall ?!”.. I pondered on this for a while, thinking how are we going to get there and what are we going to do while we are there? “We could ride our bikes!”.. After this I was sold, I discarded any doubt I was feeling. How could I pass up a beautiful day of riding bikes with my pal George? I couldn’t ask for anything better.

Now before I continue I would just like to point out that my house is not too far from the mall. At the time this story took place it would most likely take us 30 – 45 mins to ride our bikes there TOPS.

As we are getting our bikes ready for the journey, George turns to me and says “We should try and cut through the forest..” .. Once again, I pondered on this thought.. after some slight hesitation I gave in and we traveled to what we thought was the most suitable point of entry to trudge across the forest in hopes of reaching our destination faster. As we step into the forest we immediately meet our first obstacle. There is a large hill in front of us, approximately 60 – 70 degree decline. George states that he will go first and try and to ride down this hill; did I mention there is a massive fallen tree at the end of this hill? No? Well now I did. As George rides down the hill he quickly picks up speed and fails to break in time before crashing into the dead tree. He turns around and looks at me with a face that I could only describe as terrifyingly-serious and says “Don’t do that..” So I heeded his advice, picked up my bike and struggled down the hill. We quickly realized that the path we had taken was probably not the best suited for bicycles, because there was no path in site. We rode through the forest shrubbery for several minutes until we found a path, we followed this path for a few more minutes until we met our next obstacle.

“...Do we cross it? Or follow it down?” I asked George as we gaze at the river impeding our current path. “Let’s cross it” I had been following George’s instructions so why would I change that now? As we are taking off our shoes and socks to cross this river I now realize that this is no normal summer time adventure, this was something special. We heave our bikes over our shoulders and commence our journey across the river, which is approximately 10 ft wide..no biggie. When we reached the other side George began to scale the hill to get up to the path once more. *SQUISHSLURPSUCKMUD* Georges leg is now surrounded in mud up to his knee. He quickly threw his bike up the hill and turned to me and asked for mine, what a guy! After successfully climbing this hill we were covered in mud from the knees down and all up our arms. Once at the top of this hill we encountered a very peculiar plant species. We were surrounded by these small wide leafed plants that at first glance seemed harmless but while standing in them you got the sensation of thousands tiny needles being pushed into your skin. We still did not have our shoes or socks on mind you so this was a very painful experience. After dancing out of this patch of plants I had to get down and examine these things. I have never seen anything like it, each leaf of the plant was covered in TINY needles, one of the most worthy adversaries I’ve ever faced.

Now the decision is to be made.. Do we go left or right on the path? As George was leading this expedition thus far I let him make the decision; he chose left. After several minutes of travel we eventually make it to a dead end. “Maybe we should have gone right LOL” George says to me joking, so we turn around and head in the other direction. As we approach what seems to be an open field our eyes light up and we begin riding faster than ever. I think to myself..this is IT! We’ve made it out of here and we are on our way to the mall. What a great adventure. We ride out into the open and head up to what looks like a fence. We can see a barn in the distance, so we realize we are in the field of some sort of barn, which is fine. “James.. Are those horses?”.. I look around and there are about 10 horses walking around this field. “Do horses attack?” I asked.. Without hesitation George gets on his bike and starts riding furiously to the other side of the field, I quickly follow suit. We reach the other end unharmed and throw our bikes over the fence. “WTF..How did we make it here?!” George proclaims. We ended up at a familiar road right across from a friend’s house.. “Let’s go see Samuel..clean off our bikes and stuff LOL” So we stopped off at our friend’s house and regaled him with the story of our latest adventure, cleaned off ourselves and our bikes and continued on our journey.

We eventually made it to the mall, but I don’t even remember why we went. LuLz

Ps – We took the easy way back =)