DAY 114

DAY 114
07.27.07
TREE 25

This reclimb was funny. Like the first time I climbed, it was a rainy day today. But there was no break in the rain like there was before. I worked a lot of the day in sprinkling rain at Norman’s, helping him build his deck. We swam then I headed back to MACA for dry clothes, my camera, and headed into Louisville for Iroquois Park. I took a round-about way to get there but I found it. The rain was coming down pretty good. I got to the little parking lot below the north overlook, got out, and began running up the path. I felt a little rushed because it was almost 8pm and getting dark. Up the muddy trail and steps I huffed and puffed till I got to the top. A nice jog since the rain was nice and cool. Again, I was confident on which tree I needed to climb but couldn’t find the orange tape I had tied. So I second-guessed myself and looked around at surrounding trees. On my third look I found it. I remembered being terrified last time because the limbs were large and slippery in the rain. But I just jumped in ready to go. The limbs of the tree are few and spread out but there was a definite path that I remembered well, and I followed it easily. I moved fast and efficiently. My hand grips were no problem and I just took care that my feet didn’t slip. Before I knew it I was at my marker. I looked up and saw an easy path further up. I had a quick thought against it, but an even quicker thought convincing me to climb higher. Every major movement of a limb dropped a miniature rain shower from the leaves. I was getting wet but loving this climb. I laughed out loud at the ease of it. I wasn’t scared at all and I got much higher. I got back down, jumped to the ground and ran back down the path. A very fun, exciting, rewarding, and wet climb.

7-28-08:  LOL!  Not really… That’s just what I thought of when I read my entry.  But I did laugh at myself for my previous fear.  Unfortunately because of the rain that day I didn’t take the camera into the tree and I only took one picture.  Well, I took two, but I had my shirt over my head and camera to keep it from getting wet when I was shooting and my shirt got in the frame of the picture on the first go, so I took another.  It was a good improvement on the first climb and made me realize that I was getting used to climbing in the rain. 

Also, earlier that day, I was talking with Margie and Beth, two writing residents I had mentioned before.  They wanted to see the bodies I had been making.  They had fun discussing them and dancing with them.  I had fun taking pictures of it:

I love their facial expressions in this one.  I feel that I really captured a conversation about this body I had recently cast on Rachel.


And I really think they enjoyed playing with these bodies. 

All right… so after waiting to the last minute to climb on Friday evening, I got up early on Saturday to make sure I climbed before all the scheduled wedding stuff of the day.  I went down to the lake edge and looked for a tree to climb… something other than an oak like the night before.  They call the area Osage Beach so I figured there would be a lot of osage orange trees, but I wasn’t finding many.  And all the trees had few low limbs.  I kept following the edge of the water looking but not finding anything.  There were some good sycamores but the limbs started so high.  Eventually I did find some osage tree but they were small, and as I remembered from climbing one at Sarah Frederick’s, full of thorns.  Finally, on my way back towards my hotel room I found a poplar right next to the parking garage.  It wasn’t too huge but had decent limbs for a climb to the top.  I waited for the vacationers to be out of sight and then I ran up the trunk and grabbed a limb.  I climbed up easily and quickly to the top and took pictures.  I could almost see to this patio at the top of the building I was next too.  It would have been cool to transfer onto the building but who knows where I would have been and if I would have been able to get back down.  So I just finished my shots and climbed back down.





The wedding was funand congrats to Andy and Katie!