Brynn and Kori's Big Adventure

So it finally happened. On Thursday I heard those words that every parent dreads "Mom, we're bored!" Under normal circumstances, I have (as, I'm sure does every parent) my standard answer to this dilemma. It goes something like this, with variations added as needed - well, your room needs cleaning. Those are the magic boredom vanishing words. Sadly we are not, at present, living under normal circumstances and my pat answer wasn't going to cut it. Ok, time to ad lib. (Just in case you don't know me and can't see where this may be headed, ad libbing may not be the best choice under any circumstances.)'I know,' say I, 'tomorrow will be an adventure day. We will just get into the Tahoe and go see whatever takes our fancy.' So, Friday morning, armed with water and sunscreen and bug juice and first aid kit we head out. (You may notice the lack of one very important item, the cell phone. This will become important as the story goes on.) As we are driving down the Hummingbird Highway we see a sign that takes our fancy. It says "Davis Falls". Cool, lets go to the falls. So we start down the road. As roads in Belize go, this one is pretty good. Dirt but pretty wide-ish and pleasant. After we have driven for about 2-3 miles, we come to a river. I mean we come to a river. The road just disappears into a river. We can see a little blue truck some distance ahead of us that must have come the same way (duh, there is only one road) and we have 4 wheel drive so why not! We're on an adventure. We drive across the river and continue on down this beautiful (OK maybe at this point 'road' would be a bit of an overstatement) car path. We drive through a lovely orange orchard and there are literally thousands of butterflies in yellow and orange and green (believe it or not). This is amazing, we think. Then we come to the second river. None of us can see a road on the other side but it must be there, right. Right! In we go. Sure enough, a little right hand jog in the river and you can access the road on the other side. OK again road may be an overstatement as, likely, would be car path ... maybe fairly clear tire tracks would be more appropriate. You might notice a trend, each time we cross a river, the road becomes a little less like a road. By the time we figure this out, somewhere after the third river, there is no humanly possible way to turn around. This would be where I remember the forgotten, very important item discussed earlier. This would also be where I remember that, since we were on an adventure, we hadn't told anyone where we were going. Ok, not to panic the girls but looking to brainstorm a possible solution, I mention these things. Kori panics - just a little. Her voice just seems to jump an octave. Brynn, ever practical, has the solution. 'Mom, we have water and it's hot out so I say we just keep going and if we get stuck we can walk out.' Ignoring the fact that we have just DRIVEN for about 40 minutes, I agree that this seems like the best solution at present. We continue on. After the fifth river crossing we are now on what can optimistically be described as a washed out, mud ridden cow trail. There is still no hope of turning around and the butterflies are still incredible!! We keep stopping to take pictures of them. Brynn continues to dub this 'the best adventure ever!' and Kori is complaining that her hands are starting to hurt from holding onto the door so tightly. It has been almost an hour and the fact that the wiper fluid is low, which didn't seem like an issue when we left, has actually become a problem. The water we splash up in the multiple river crossings doesn't even begin to attack the mud we splash up on the cow trail. Finally we come to a sign. 'Davis Falls' with an arrow pointing ... where? All I see is a bush that looks like it is cleverly masking a cliff. We take a vote and decide I am a good enough driver ... to be able to turn around in this sorta open spot we are in. It has been an hour and we won't be seeing the falls this time out. On the plus side, we know we can get out because we made it in! And we have lots of pretty butterfly pictures. The look on Alfred's face when we pull into the parking lot of his office driving an actual mud puddle still has his coworkers laughing. And Alfred is still chuckling because he has been to Davis Falls and we turned around in the parking lot! Yes, a mere 40 minute hike through that bush would have taken us to the falls. 40 MINUTES!! No way! Brynn, Kori and I all agree that that is much too long a hike to see some stupid falls.