Our minds can play tricks on us in the dark.  In 8th grade, my friends and I used to dare each other to walk the entire route of what we called “Snake Tunnel”.  We’d try to be brave stepping into the trickling water.  With each step, the light from the entrance would get smaller, and every little noise echoing off the steel walls sounded like someone waiting to attack us up ahead.

Forty years later, when my daughter and I climbed over the broken wall of the bunker, some of those 8th grade memories came flooding back.

“This is crazy!” I said, stepping into the damp darkness.

David waited with a giddy smile at the top of the stairs, and I walked up next to him, trying to be the fearless dad.  But I wasn’t fearless.

The whole idea of exploring a World War 1 machine gun nest wouldn’t have happened if David hadn’t pushed it.  The problem was, during his first attempt, he had only gotten a little way down those stairs.  We had to leave and go further up the trail to the lake before the rain, but on our way back, he had another chance.  That tunnel was calling for him, beckoning him back into the unknown.

Of course, Joy and I couldn’t let him go alone, so we followed.

We lit up the tunnel with the flashlights on our phones.  Surprisingly, the stairs and the walls seemed solid, and there were little ledges where soldiers once placed their gas lamps for light.  But those stairs kept going down further and further.

“Oh. . .my. . .gosh!” Joy whispered looking down the stairway.

One step after another took us deeper into the mountain, further from the light.  We probably went down four stories until finally we hit the bottom, stepping into about two inches of water.  There were hallways leading in different directions, and as our flashlights hit the walls, we saw rough, painted arrows, probably put there by hikers trying to not get lost in the maze.  One hallway brought us to what looked like old, rusted bunkbed frames.

Then there was the iron door.  Rust covered it, reminding us of the age of those hallways, and I imagined the terror we’d feel if we suddenly heard the clang of one of those doors slamming shut behind us.

“David,” I whispered, “remember that episode of ‘Outer Banks’ when those kids got trapped behind that iron door.”  As soon as the words left my mouth, I regretted saying it.

“Yeah,” he whispered back, probably trying to keep his imagination from going there.

Eventually, we came to a circular staircase going up.  The steps were made of wood, and the first two were broken, but that didn’t stop David.  He just started going up.

“Um, are you sure about that, David?” I asked, watching his light cast shadows on the walls as he climbed.

We’ve already been this far, I thought.  Why not a little further?

Joy and I followed again, and the steps creaked under the strain of our weight.  When we got to the top, we were shocked.

Are you kidding me?!! I thought to myself.

We were in another machine gun nest.  We had traveled underground long enough to reach an entirely different location on the mountain.  Only at this nest, the opening was barred shut, so there was no getting out–or so we thought.

“This is so cool!” David shouted, looking through the bars.

“I’m gonna go through the gate!” Joy declared with her own teenage swagger.

“You can’t get through that,” David said.

“Watch me.”  Joy squeezed her legs through the bars.  Then her body.  And finally, her head.

“Way to go, Joy!” I shouted.  “Now go find Momma and tell her we’re coming.”

There was no way David and I were going to squeeze through the gate, so we traversed back down the wood staircase, back into the dark hallways and up the stairs.

We treasured those last moments in the darkness.

“David,” I whispered as we walked up the stairs, “let’s turn off our lights.”  David smiled.  We both shut off our lights and could see nothing.  You’d think we’d be scared, but the fear taunting us before had passed.  We were headed back toward the entrance, back to what was familiar. . .and we were having fun!

“Guys, are you down there!” Deb shouted from the opening, her voice echoing off the cement walls.

“We’re on our way up!”  David shouted back.

When we got to the top, we stepped into the sunlight and saw Deb.

Words burst out of all three of us.

“And the tunnels were like a maze!”. . .”And there was this wood, spiral staircase!”. . .”Joy barely fit through that gate” . . .”There were these rusted out doors” . . .

We spent the rest of the hike talking about it, like munchkins humming with curious conversation about the dead wicked witch.  And Deb smiled with relief, like Glenda, listening patiently to every word.

All day, we anticipated seeing Lago di Sorapis, the beautiful lake in the Dolomites.  We saw pictures of it on the AllTrails app, planned to eat lunch there, and heard hikers talking about it as we got closer.  That lake was our goal.

But what if we were so focused on the lake, we missed the machine gun nest?  We would’ve missed making one of the greatest memories of our entire trip.

And I wouldn’t have a story.

When we made it to the lake, Joy whispered, “Thank you, Jesus,” and rightly so.  Like a master painter, God did some good work on those gorgeous snow-capped peaks and that turquoise water, and He helped us get there.

But we can also thank Him for the machine gun nest.  Stepping into that bunker with my kids got my heart pumping.  We bonded in that darkness, and I felt alive.

I’ve gotten pretty goal oriented in my 50s.  I stay awake at night thinking about vacations, retirement, and publishing a book, but what about the morning walks with my wife and the smiles in the hallway on my way to class?  Most of life happens in those moments on our way to something else.  But they’re God’s gifts too, and I don’t want to miss them.

TO SEE A VIDEO OF OUR ADVENTURE, CLICK HERE.

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