August 2008 – Page 7

DAY 143
08.25.07
TREE 60

Another packed, busy day. I got up early after getting to bed late ’cause I knew I had a lot to do. I finally got a hold of Norman and since he is dog sitting he wasn’t at his house. So he came to MACA to give me Lloyd and a drill so that I could take them back to his house. I got ready to climb and got ready to sit at the MACA promotional booth at Art in Speed Park. At Norm’s house I parked and got Lloyd out. I headed towards the trail on the right side of the lake and Lloyd came following behind. It didn’t take long to get to the tree. I walked around the trunk to plan entry and got hit with a few webs. This tree had quite a few. Remembering how I climbed up the first time, I grabbed the rounded knots on the trunk and jumped into a crouching position pulling back with my hands and pressing forward with my feet. I inched up my hands then hopped up with my feet till I could reach the first branch. From there it was easy. No dead branches, plenty of options, and quickly I was too the top. I grabbed my ribbon then took a few pictures. I headed up another limb about two feet and took a few more. It was a really nice view of the lake, but I couldn’t see much esle. Lloyd was waiting for me next to the trunk, just laying and relaxing. I shot a couple pictures of him from above. Then I climbed down, jumped to the ground and headed back. The rest of the day was busy. Boring at Speed Park but fun manning the Kerplunk! booth at the St. Francis picnic. An eventful day.

8-25-08: I had some fun with the pictures from this climb. It was such a photogenic tree that there were just too many to show individually, so I made these last two images just playing around with them.

And, I wanted to say that Lloyd is possibly the best dog ever. I am not exactly sure why he followed me and stuck with me, but it was really nice that he did. I’m not much of a pet person, but if I did get a dog, I could only hope it’s like Lloyd. Soon I’ll be moving in with Drew and he’s been thinking about getting a dog. I wouldn’t mind since I had two out west, but I also hope he’s a good owner. There is nothing worse than a bad dog who obviously learned nothing from their stupid owner. If you rescue a dog and struggle to retrain it, I can sympathize and have some patience, but some people need to just get one book about training a dog and learn some things. I’d recommend

Ok, enough about dogs.

Yesterday I went to open gym at Flip City Gymnastics. I did a gainer (a back flip with forward movement) into the foam pit. I had nice rotation but when I landed in the pit my knees sunk down in place while my upper body continued to rotate backwards. My back took the bend pretty hard so I am going to be taking it easy for a while. Unfortunately, no parkour until I am all better. Luckily it wasn’t debilitating and I could still bike and climb a tree later that evening. I just need to follow my docs orders and take care of it and I am sure I’ll be better shortly. It did, however, affect the intensity of my climb. I just took it slowly and made sure not to arch my back as that tends to aggravate the spot.

In picking my tree I chose to bike to Cherokee Park where I knew I could find any number of easily climbable trees. I chose a maple up by Dog Hill and leaned my bike against the trunk. There was a nice low limb I could reach without jumping and began by just pulling myself up into the branches. From there I just went smoothly from limb to limb all the way past where the trunk splits to the top of the tree. I had some nice bouncing movement on the end of these limbs as I got my camera to take pictures. I didn’t have a whole lot to shoot but I did enjoy seeing all the whirligigs still hanging within the leaves turning brown and getting ready to drop.

I guess I did manage to take quite a few pictures still. But after some of the views I have had lately, this was tame by comparison. Still nice… with the clouds that hint at a possible rain shower. The ever elusive rain shower that we have yet to experience in quite some time.

So I remembered what I had talked about in yesterday’s entry about taking the time at the top of the tree to just take it in and allow for inspiration to ferment. I tried, but I was preoccupied with thoughts of my back and that my bike was below, unlocked, and I couldn’t see it. So I climbed back down with no problems.

Later, I went to band practice and my back started to tighten up a little more. There is nothing good about injury. But I am positive that I will soon heal and be back to normal… it’ll just take time.