DAY 58

DAY 58
06.01.07
TREE 64

Trying to hit as many different parks as I can, I headed to Central Park in Louisville on a tip. I had forgotten about it even though it is the park I’ve been to for Shakespeare in the Park. Being so small I chose to walk the entire park to know my options and pick the best tree. This park has so many huge, old, beautiful trees. I tried to even reach the lowest branch of this massive tree but failed to scale the trunk. So I headed back to a smaller, but decently sized tree I had eyed earlier on in my scouting. It had plentiful, strong branches all tightly woven around each other reaching for the sun. The best part of the climb was the beginning. The first branches were too high for me to jump and the trunk too smooth to scale. So I walked out from the trunk to an overhanging branch, grabbed its tip and went hand over hand pulling down further in. Pretty soon I was on my tiptoes and I tested my weight and pulled myself up the rest of the way. Very satisfying. The rest of the climb was fun and easy and I got pretty high. After I got down I walked past a shirtless old man who had been watching me from a bench. He even changed benches to have a better view. He shouted out to me, “You are a braver man than me.”

6-1-08:  That tree I climbed at the Louisville Central Park is a beech.  I really do love it when I can monkey in towards a tree trunk on an overhanging branch.  What sucks is when that branch breaks when you put all your weight on it.  Which has happened to me a few times.  It actually happened a couple weeks ago at Tyler Park when I was trying to climb this huge tree.  The whole branch snapped and I brought it down to the ground.  I looked around the crowded park and many parents and children at the playground very near by were looking at me.  I wonder what that shirtless man might have said had I broken a branch?

Before going out last night I stopped at the water tower to climb a tree.  I spotted a nice cypress tree over on the right edge of the field.  As I walked near I noticed the tree was surrounded by other smaller trees like a mulberry full of fruit.  I ate a couple berries and then went around to the other side to find an entrance.  There was a drainage pipe with a huge dead, rotting fish.   I tried to get a picture but, unfortunately, they all turned out blurry.  I climbed up a small mulberry and then transferred onto a low cypress branch.  Once in this tree I could tell it was being choked to death by what I believe is poison ivy.  I had not tested my dad’s statement that men in my family were immune to the horrible reaction that poison ivy causes.  As I climbed the spindly vines got worse and worse and it was an awful struggle just to go from branch to branch.  Poison ivy leaves were rubbing all over my legs, arms, and face.  I got up almost to the top and tried to climb out on a limb to get away from this suffocating mess of ivy.  I took some pictures and then had a strong desire to have this climb over and just began to go down as fast as I could.  This is when the ivy began to lift my shirt and shorts and rub even more of my body.  I should report, I have no reaction to the ivy… but I did want to ask my viewers if they think what I encounterd, was in fact, poison ivy.  Your thoughts and opinions are highly appreciated.  The evidence:

And I did happen to get a nice picture of the water towers with the sun setting: