American Adventure 50+ Style

Childhood is imagination in its purest form.   

My best friend reminds me of how good it feels to laugh. When together, we revert to a child-like state with unending silliness. In fact, I can’t take life too seriously when spending time with Barbie. During my week visit with her, we stayed up until 1:00 am posting pictures on our Facebook pages and then writing funny comments, funny to us that is.

Belly rolls of laughter filled Barbie’s country home, blurring our eyes with happy tears. Uploading the photos of our afternoon tube float pushed us over the edge of humor decency protocols. American Adventure 50+ style seemed a fitting description of our excursion that began at breakfast.

“Let’s go floating!” Barbie had announced. The idea sounded great to me so we put on river shoes and readied with lessons on tube-riding basics.

Barbie’s agility impressed me, so I tried to model her stellar performance.

Then we shoved the tubes into her Mitsubishi Outlander and found a grassy bank by a bridge to “put in” (This is the proper way to say dropping your tube into the river).

Two hours of sheer joy followed as we floated down the winding river that was framed on both sides with overhanging trees and reeds swaying in soft breezes.

The temperature climbed into the high 80’s, making the crisp mountain water refreshing to our sun-baked bodies. Our giggles disturbed a doe and her fawn that were sleeping on the riverbank. They leapt out of the reeds and bounded across the river. I mumbled, “A perfect picture moment disappeared in a split second, and I don’t have my camera. Rats!”

As we floated lazily along, I pondered how unimportant my worries seemed in the midst of such beauty. Who really cares about publishing direction when everywhere you look, another miracle of nature soars through powder-blue skies or skims across swirling water.

Yes, childhood is imagination in its purest form, so today I’m not ashamed to act like a child. I think I will write and create more fluidly as a result of revisiting the world through youthful eyes.