DAY 152
09.03.07
TREE 66
I spent most of the early part of the day eating and the middle part sitting in the car on our way back to Kentucky. I ate mexican food with my parents then got all my stuff in my truck and headed back to the Mary Anderson Center eager to climb my tree. Luckily, for convenience sake, it was the tree right behind the post office. I have since climbed in this tree a few times to install and uninstall one of my tape bodies. But I never got that high. This time I took the climbing slowly because so many of the branches are so small. I had to be sure to distribute my weight among my multiple holds, and grab near the base of the limb. With some twisting and leveraging maneuvers I made it to m previous high point and tore down my ribbon. Then I studied this limb that continued up quite a ways further. I saw a possibility and immediately took to action. I had to put my trust in some dying limbs but all held fine. I climbed a substantial distance further to the top of this tree. I was well above the roof of the post office and had a tremendous view of… the parking lot. I could see some of the field and lake. I guess the barn too, but for the height I wanted more. The low sun provided for some good shots and I was just really happy with the vast improvement on my first climb. I soaked in the accomplishment and then made it down pretty easy. I love it when my reclimb is so different form the original climb. 
9-3-08: I feel like sharing with you another picture. One of the body I installed in that same tree. It is the black one with glass eyes I made from Norman’s cast. I called it The Creeper.
This was very low in the tree and was installed for Magic at the Mount. There was a woman who told stories to groups of children and they were right underneath the creeper. Then the woman looked up at one point and spotted the dark figure and was quite frightened. It was awesome. I usually like scaring children, but old people do just as well.
After packing up all my stuff and taking all my bodies to my parents house yesterday I drove back to my apartment for my last night there. MaryLiz wanted to celebrate a bunch of things, namely her new apartment, her coming trip to Spain, and was there something else? Oh yeah, she saw this documentary on Sigur Ros and was wigging out at how good it was. So she biked over and on our way to the Nachbar I stopped at this oak tree on the corner of Liberty and … maybe Campbell, but I’m not sure. 
MaryLiz waited below on the sidewalk as I scrambled up the low branches into the tree. Having climbed mostly maples lately, I had to prepare for a more difficult climb. Different kinds of trees offer unique climbing experiences. This kind of oak has plenty of limbs, but lots of off shoot twigs that poke. It is quite the annoyance and in awkward positions I have to break and move these poking twigs so my shirt doesn’t get caught, or my leg get scratched. As I went higher it got a little better and pretty soon I was at the top. Again, the branches were a little too thin to stay still for good pictures so I made a little strip of small images to view.
And some flash pictures.
As MaryLiz was waiting below, I did not stay up there long before I started to climb down. Since I had broken a lot of the most annoying limbs going down went more smoothly. I dropped to the ground skipping any hanging and we went out for the night.