4/17/2002: River swing
 

http://cellar.org/2002/riverswing.jpg

It's hot out there... hot and disgusting. It's 95 today, was 92 yesterday. I don't want to go out there. It's April dammit. It's less than a month out of winter.

So this image wouldn't have made it in the summer, but it made it today. I like the composition, with the hills in the background. I like how the guy's legs are flailing out and his reflection is in the water. I like how long the rope is. Most of all, I like how much fun this must be.

In my day, we would go swim in the creek which ran next to my neighborhood, and there were swings LIKE this, but none so long. What did y'all have?

We had a pond with a nice, squishy bottom... ideal for letting the mud ooze up over your toes. No rope swing, unfortunately, but we did have an excellent raft made of two-by-fours and 50-gallon drums anchored out in the middle.

Re: 4/17/2002: River swing
 

Sadly, the only rope swing I've ever been on straddled a mini-gorge, not water. :p

It would be nice to wade through the creek behind my house...but I don't trust what could be in it. :)

A day like today reminds me of the time I went to White Water in Branson, MO. It's a big-ass water park. The weather was just about as hot as it is today in Philadelphia. I remember feeling like I was gliding on top of the water as I was going down the slides. That was fun. :)

I live in vancouver.

It has rained every single day for the past 3 months. ;p



... screw all of you.


;)

Doesn't it rain damned near every day of the year in that neck of the woods anyway?

I guess I would get used to it...but whenever I've thought of moving to a place like Portland (OR) or Seattle, I've always wondered whether I could stand that much rain.

Re: 4/17/2002: River swing
 

Never had a rope swing over water that I could call my own.

BUT

In 1996 I took a summer job in an unnamed National Recreation Area. Some of the employees would somtimes "have a few" then sneak down to a nearby erector-set style bridge over a deep sandstone canyon. We'd rappel off the safety railing down to one of the concrete footings, then send a guy out on belay to secure a rope maybe forty feet out or so to the steel under the structure. He'd return with the rope, then we'd take turns clipping in and cutting loose over the canyon below. Whoever was swinging would trail a slack rope, and we had a jumar haul system to get him back to the start point when he was done.

Doing this in the dark, lit only by dim headlamps with red filters, would give me vertigo and I'd usually only swing 3 or 4 times before I'd want to stop.

Re: 4/17/2002: River swing
 

Come on out here to Reno, then. We had snow last night and some today. :D

At the place I lived at when I was in elementary school up to Jr. High I could walk about half a block to the river where we had a rope swing there. Some even rode tubas down the river.

Re: Re: 4/17/2002: River swing
 

Tubas? As in the musical instruments? Please tell me you mean intertubes. :)

We're supposed to drop back into the 50s by Sunday. I'm glad actually. I can't believe I have my A/C on. :p

Re: Re: Re: 4/17/2002: River swing
 

Then tell us what intertubes are. Are they like innertubes?

Just joshing, actually. Obviously Tony means *sousaphones*...

Oh shit...I did screw that one up. My bad. :)

I think all of you are thinking of inner tubes. ;)

As opposed to the inner child.

We used to have a few wild grape vines that we'd use for swinging on a side hill in the woods. One of my buds who was more um.. er... substantial than me thought he'd use his potential energy to make the longest swing ever. When he reached the furthest point on the arc all the tiny little vines up in the trees gave way. It was quite spectacular and he had the good fortune of falling just short of a barbed wire fence.

We had a pool at home growing up which was really the answer after spending the day in the hayfield. We wouldn't even bother changing clothes, 95 to 65 in one second... perfect. Followed by hours of grab ass (thats horseplay ya pervert).... where did we ever get the energy?

My friends had a house up on a river bluff and a rope swing that would fly out over the edge of the bluff. You fall, you die. We'd take a running leap off the edge and swing around the tree trying not to crash land. I remember the heart in your throat, having to trust your hands and tring to time the running landing. If dropping over water, you need to tighten up to avoid the dreaded, full-force, aqua-enema. ouch.

Uhh yeah. Inner tubes. I hearby blame this mistake on the freezes and crashes Windows was giving me last night.

Yeah.

Though it is an interesting image to see someone going down a river in an inner tube playing a tuba.

"Take me to the river, and toss me in the water..."