DAY 242

DAY 242
12.02.07
TREE 166

It was a cold rainy Sunday.  Dark, and off and on bouts of pouring rain.  I kept putting off my climb until I saw no point in fighting it.  I had to do it.  So I geared up.  Rain pants and coat, crappy old shoes, and I wrapped my camera in a plastic sandwich bag.  By this point it was night, very dark, and the rain was steady but not too hard.  I knew exactly where I was going, to the back yard to one of those pine trees just beyond the tennis court.  I stepped up to the trunk and sunk down in a huge pile of leaves my dad had placed around the trees.  Wet, sticky leaves of dark brown.  It made that first branch a little further than I thought it would be.  But this was my tree, no changing now.  I was determined.  So I readied myself to get wet and dirty.  I tested the grip of the wet trunk with my hands and it was doable.  I reached high, squeezed and then lifted my legs up and wrapped them around the trunk.  I inched upwards and reached fro the lowest limb.  When I first got my bare hand on it, I knew it was slippery.  At least it wasn’t so cold it was freezing.  I pulled myself up and began the slow climb up the segmented levels of pine limbs.  Mostly I went up straight adjusting only slightly to get around a branch or to get a better footing on the strongest of branches for each level.  Some of the limbs I used were pretty little, but all were disgustingly filthy. 

I couldn’t see it but I could feel it.  I pushed myself up very high to the top.  I am getting used to wet and cold climbs.  I don’t find them any more dangerous.  I know they are, but I take more caution and am not any more scared.  A tree must be climbed everyday no matter the circumstances.  I held m high position with tired andaching arms.  I had to wipe my hands off for quite some time on my hoodie under my raincoat so I could handle my camera.  I tied the ribbon, got the camera out of the bag and made sure my hood was pulled as far out over my face as possible.  I use that to keep the rain off my camera.  Pictures were impossible. 

I took a couple with flash which show no distance and it was too dark to get much of a long-exposure shot. 

I put the camera away and just enjoyed the view.  The cold disappeared and the rain did not matter.  I was incredibly high and had an amazing view of these tall, black, silhouetted trees in the woods behind me. 

It makes it all worth it.  Moments like these are so special and amazing.  I don’t know why I dread climbing in bad weather because I always end up loving the experience.  It is just a lesson so hard to learn. 

I climbed down happy as can be.  I trudged inside, took off my wet layers, and looked at my hands.  They were black.  Every little line and crack was filled with pine residue, dirt, and rain moisture.  It makes showering worthwhile. 

12-4-08:  That last sentence makes me sound like I hate showering.  I like showering, I just don’t see the point of doing it daily.  I have been doing it daily, however, just to warm me up when I get uncontrollably cold.  But I have changed my practice of that yesterday.  Instead of showering I did push-ups, works the same but gives the oppposite results.  I am clean after one and dirty after the other. 

Also, as I typed up the above entry I read it out loud in a deep and gravelly British accent.  It made each sentence sound so much more alive and profound.  Try it!  Because, honestly, these things can get boring from time to time.  You got to spice it up.  It’s like a marriage, I have to blog everyday so I might as well try to make it interesting. 

When I drove to my parents on Thanksgiving I parked and anti-freeze was dripping out and forming a puddle quickly.  We took the truck in Sunday night and they replaced the water pump and did an oil change on Monday.  I am saying this because this causedme to be trapped out at my parents place most of Monday.  We all took Scott to the airport than grabbed a late lunch on the way back.  By the time we picked up the truck it was dark.  I raced back home because the 1st of the month had snuck up on me again.  I got a rent check from Drew and hopped back in my truck to drop it off at my landlord’s house near Cherokee Park.  I did the same thing last month.  When I got to his neighborhood I took a wrong turn, when down the wrong street to the end, then went back out and found the right street.  I went down it, put the check in the mail box, went to the end of his street, then back out.  Then I saw a cop car following me.  I was almost out of the neighborhood and his lights went on.  I pulled over and he walked up and asked for license and registration.  Then he asked if I knew why he pulled me over, and I had no clue.  He said I went up and down two streets and it was suspicious.  There are car break-ins and people complain about people randomly driving through the streets.  The cop said he worked a full day for the city and is getting overtime to watch over this neighborhood in the evening.  I explained my situation and he believed me.  But he still had to take my info back and run a check on me.  He took for ever because my name is so common, so he said.  I just hate that feeling of getting pulled over.  Then I was on my way to pick a tree in the park. 

I had spotted a sycamore on my way to the house so I went back by it and parked. 

I walked up to the trunk and saw that I couldn’t reach any of the branches.  I was going to have to pull the end of one down and climb in.  I tried one for a while but all I got was a broken branch.  I picked another on that looked skinnier but it was actually stronger.  I bent it down and crawled in. 

Once I got to the trunk it was an easy climb. 

My hands got pretty cold from the smooth bark. 

I reached the top and did my best to take pictures.  The park has no lights at night so I tried to utilize the city glow and the fewcars that went by. 

I was also sandwiched between two residential areas so there were some house lights. 

Otherwise I used my flash.  Then I climbed down and took a few more as I went. 

I crawled back out the same branch I went up and dropped gently to the ground.  I was glad the cop didn’t drive by and see me in the tree.  That seems a little more suspicious.  I wonder if he had, what he’d say?