DAY 254

DAY 254
12.14.07
TREE 178

I was planning on heading to the Mary Anderson Center right after work but when I called Norm he said he and Casey were going to be heading to the UofL pottery sale.  I had missed the kiln unloading since he did it early in the day so I asked him if he could take my pots with him and I’d meet him at the sale.  I drove to the campus and parked on the street by the McDonald’s. 

I fed the meter and changed my clothes in the cab of my truck.  I knew it would take Norm and Casey a while to get here so I went looking for a tree.  On the other side of the Eastern Parkway overpass I saw a huge tree.  Like a moth to a flame I was drawn to it.  But when I got to it I saw that it was too massive and the limbs started way too high for me to reach. 

I moved on and looked up the side of the overpass to a sidewalk that led to a tree at the street corner.  It looked perfect and since it was up a bit I’d have a good view of the campus and sports fields around me.  This tree was a beech, I believe, and had no main trunk.  All the main leaders spread out from down low. 

I watched for cop cars and got up into the branches.  So many limbs were dead and brittle on this tree.  I was breaking them all over the place.  I snaked up and around this tree, transferring to different leader limbs to get higher and higher.  I eventually got to the top and kept a close eye on cars going by. 

I checked for faces that noticed me but I don’t think many, if any, did. 

So I  tied the ribbon and got out my camera.  Since I was climbing earlier than usual I had plenty of light.  And lucky for me it was clear and sunny.  I looked around me and saw the Louisville downtown skyline in the distance and all the huge lights over the campus fields and thought, man, this would make for great night shots!  But alas, it was daytime.  I shot what I could. 

My stance was relatively secure but the wind was blowing pretty good so some angles were hard to hold.  I did notice that the building closest to me had standing water on its entire roof. 

It looked cool but I can imagine that’s really bad for the building.  I also hoped, since I had a view of the ceramics building and parking lot that I would see Norm and Casey drive up. 

But they didn’t come for a while.  I saw one cop car go by, I wasn’t about to wait up there for another one.  I put my camera in my pocket and headed back down.  It was a pretty okay climb, nothing challenging or spectacular. 

Later I ran to my truck because I was ten minutes past my meter expiring and the woman was there with my ticket.  I ran up to her panting and said, "I’m here, I’m sorry, I’ll move it."

She said, "I’m sorry, already written," and she just walked off.  Never even looked back.  Fifteen bucks for ten minutes.  Damn!

12-17-08:  I really wish I could have been there for that kiln unloading.  I was pretty excited about my pots and there is something about pulling a good pot out of a kiln that is very exciting.  Oh well, instead I got a parking ticket that day.  I was so pissed.  She didn’t even care that I was there.  The thing that really burned me was that I could have parked in the lot and gotten a visitors sticker in the sale.  After years of some unlucky bullshit I budget about $200 per year for stupid mistakes like that.  Once I did that, it made getting tickets or loosing money, or getting scammed, or whatever, not anger me so much.  As long as my losses don’t exceed 200 for the year I pretty much keep my cool.

Last Saturday I had a very long and fun parkour meet-up at the Waterfront park by Tumbleweed.  I ran there at 1pm and met one regular and two newbies.  I went through a whole warm-up, stretching, and basics training routine.  One of the new guys got warn out and left about the time two more regulars showed up late.  We played some games and I started to get pretty worn out.  But Dick said three girls were coming to try it and were really excited.  So they eventually showed up about 3 and I took them through the whole warm-up, stretch, basics again.  Then we played parkour tag which is probably one of the most exhausting games to play.  We all finally crashed and had to stop about 4. 

It was great to push myself but when I finally got home I was in no mood to climb.  I let the day turn to night and then I forced myself outside to climb.  I biked over to the Boy & Girls Club on Story and walked to the edge of their field. 

There is a fence at the edge of the property lined with trees.  It is right next to the off ramp from I-64. 

I found a tree with two trunks that seemed like it would be a good tree and started up. 

I warmed up and gained energy as I got higher and my adrenaline kicked in.  I kept climbing higher and higher and the branches got smaller but remained strong enough and big enough to get so high I could almost reach higher than the highest tip of the tree. 

I took pictures of the cars going by on the highway and of the surrounding buildings and houses. 

There was a large tower nearby that just seemed so much taller than where I was. 

Mostly, though, I took pictures of the moon.  Again it was big, bright, and full that night. 

It gave a nice cool light to the branches of the tree. 

When I finished shooting I climbed up just a branch higher and it felt great.  It is about as close as I get to conquering a tree like a climber conquers a mountain. 

I climbed back down and took a few pictures from the bottom then hopped back on my bike to get back home.