DAY 196
10.17.07
TREE 118 & 119
This time I waited for Emily to show and she did. I helped her unpack and get situated, then I headed into Louisville to eat and climb. As I drove in on I-64 I was debating where to climb. I thought about trying to go to a part of Cherokee Park that I haven’t been to yet but it was soon to be dark so I thought it would help to find a tree in a more residential and well lit area. Plus, finding new strange places to climb can be fun. New things about Louisville are discovered… little hidden areas I’ve never known about are explored. I drove up Frankfort Avenue and turned off by the School for the Blind. I checked out the trees at this one little park I’ve been to before but nothing hit me. So I walked over to the school. There were signs that warned to not trespass and people were around so I just walked the perimeter looking at trees. I did spot a pretty humongous possibility, but walked on to look for something else. I know where that tree is now and could come back to it. I found a paved path that winds behind the school and continues over to Brownsboro Road. I walked along it until it stopped on Haldeman. There at the corner are these two trees right next to each other with one low limb and lots going up.
They called to me… these were my trees. I can’t exactly say why one tree calls to me over others, or what it is… the possible challenge or difficulty, or height… maybe that’s it. I see the chance to get to the top, to feel I’ve conquered this tree. That it didn’t defeat me. These trees offered a route, but a difficult one, to the top. I got up, and with my climbing knowledge was able to hop back and forth between the two trees all the way to the swaying top with not much difficulty.
I was really high and had a great view.
I saw this road I had been on countless times in a new way.
This was a good climb.
10-17-08: What a let down of an entry. I built this whole thing up about finding these two trees that called to me, then spent no time describing why this was such a great climb. Not to mention I was talking about how difficult it looked then said in just one sentence, it was easy. The best thing about this tree was the height. It provided such a good view of Brownsboro Road. And no one would ever know I was there. I think I just stopped writing cause I hit the end of the page. I get the feeling on some of these entries that I would just conclude the writing because I didn’t feel like turning the page over.
At parkour on Wednesday Glenn and Lewis were talking about Brown Park. I had never been though once I looked it up on a map, realized I had seen it and driven by it countless times. I used to deliver pizzas for Tony Boombozz and went by the park many times in a shift. The park sits at the end of Browns Lane by the hospitals. So yesterday I biked over there to check it out and climb a tree. I spent a lot of time biking around the trails looking for good ones but found little. I tried for a little bit to climb the largest sycamore I have ever seen. The trunk looked to be 7 or 8 feet in diameter. It was just too huge for me to get anywhere. I gave up and biked around some more. I found another spot… a field with young trees and concrete blocks spaced out. It almost looked like large grave stones. Not really sure what they were going for there. Maybe rough benches. They did make for good play. I ran and jumped from block to block, then began to jump from the blocks to the trees. I stopped after crashing my knee into the corner of one of the blocks and set my sights to get my climb out of the way.
I went around the park paths once again and nothing looked good. I finally decided to go to the playground area and found a nice little maple by the edge of the park. I jumped into the tree easily and looked up to see a scared squirrel. There was a clump of leaves that must be his nest and I scared him out.
He climbed away out of view and I continued up to the nest. There was also another nest but upon closer inspection found it was an old and abandoned bird’s nest.
I climbed past the nests to the top of the tree and took pictures of the sunset over the hospital buildings.
After putting my camera away to watch the clouds move over the sun I started to hear this strange cry. The squirrel was in the next tree just crying to me, “get out of my tree.”
I obliged and started to climb down, but not before I got a couple more shots of his nest and his nice little entrance.
As I was doing this a nurse taking a smoke break on a near by bench spotted me and gave me some real strange looks. I then thought I should hang up-side down to stretch my back which made her give me even more strange looks. I climbed the rest of the way down and walked to my bike which was right next to the nurse. She asked what the heck I was doing in that tree. I told her I was just taking pictures. She told me to be careful.
You know who needs to be careful? Squirrels. I believe I almost ran over 10 squirrels yesterday. They run across the street and as I approach, instead of continuing to run out of my way, they stop and freak out. They run right, then left in this frantic death dance of indecision. It freaks me out. I do NOT want to run over a squirrel and thankfully have not yet.