The Roads...

This is my philosophy when I take Sunday drives:

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I interpret the poem, not as regret, but satisfied with my choice. Nothing better than to take some country road, off the beaten path, discover a diner, have the daily special.
 
Yes Lynne, this was when I live on the island of Okinawa, Japan.

So let me share the part about the crashed plane. On that same day as the spider incident, my friend and I found on the same property a water pipe that ran verticallly up the side of a rather sheer cliff about 50’. We tried to climb the pipe but we could not do it alone.

So we went home and brought back two more friends and tried again. We eventually monkeyed up the pipe one at a time helping each other with a leg up from the bottom and a hand out at the top.

When we got to the top we found we were on a pretty flat plateau about 50’ wide and less than 300’ long. There was a small private plane sitting on the plateau just about 15’ from one of the drop offs. It wasn’t too badly damaged - one of the struts was bent and a door was missing. It was typical small plane with single front prop and wings on top. It looked to be probably no more than 10 years old but no idea how long it had been where it was. There wasn’t a lot of plant growth on the plane at that point. There certainly was no way that thing was going to take off on the plateau; so I suspect the pilot and/or owner just chose to abandon it where it was.

While things are kind of quiet here, I’ll post the third of four pieces of my beautiful adventure in the jungly areas of Okinawa, Japan. This part is short as not too much exciting until part four. This is literally a transition from the other two stories.

So in the first part I mentioned my friend and I were Indy Jones-ing it through what appeared to be either an abandoned temple or small castle. It was completely covered by plants, vines, and the trees at the edges of the propriety were hugely tall with thick canopies leading me to believe it had been growing unfettered for several dozen years. This is the area where the spider encounter occurred.

The structure was so dilapidated that it was hard to tell where official entrances to the structure were constructed and where the walls appeared to have been forcibly breached or crumbed. So at some point we apparently stumbled out of that defined area and onto a short path which lead us to the plateau where we found the crashed plane in the second part.

It wasn’t too much farther at all down this path - measure that like in paces not miles - that we found ourselves inside of an abandoned zoo. It was almost like the zoo was built immediately adjacent to the temple/castle.

It was pretty clear that the zoo area was newer than the ancient structure we just left because the zoo’s buildings and walkways were clearly made of formed concrete. And, all of the foliage in and at the periphery of the zoo were overgrown but not as thick nor tall as what we saw at the temple/castle.

I don’t know if we were able to investigate the entire zoo but what we did walk was probably about five acres total. The most interesting thing - well the second most interesting until part four of four of the story - we found was the empty animal cages. They were built with rebar used as the bars instead of any more official kind of cage system. Almost like something you’d expect to be used in a backyard arena...or possibly to house human prisoners of war. All of these enclosures had their metal doors ripped off their hinges and the rebar cut and then bent outwards. I assumed both were done at the point of the abandonment or afterwards to ensure that no one could be trapped inside.

That’s it until final chapter #4.
 
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Okie dokie - chapter 4 - “The croc awaits!”

Quick reminder to set the scene but of course works best if you read my three prior related posts in this thread. At one point later in the day there were four of us together in this abandoned zoo, but at this point there are only two of us. I was a 14 year old skeletal kid and my friend was 19 and 50 to 60 pounds heavier than me.

So like my last post indicated, we stepped out of the temple/castle’s overgrown jungly structures and almost immediately into this abandoned zoo. Though the zoo was also seriously overgrown, many of the concrete walkways where still passable without needing to push bushes aside.

On one extreme end of the zoo there was a wood and metal bridge - not a bridge that spanned a void but one that was like an inverted “U”. It was essentially two sets of stairs climbing up about 5' to 7' and a very narrow platform between them to allow you to climb up then walk over something and then climb down the other side. There were certainly dilapidated signs posted but neither of us could read kanji so we had no clue what the signs said. We didn’t then and still don’t now...but in retrospect I could make some guesses.

So he and I do the inevitable which is follow the path to this little bridge and climb up it. We looked around to see that the bridge allowed you to move up and over a fenced area. Inside that fenced area was a really dirty, scummy pond with a shallow edge. At the far end of the pond was...sticking partially out of the water...a “dead” crocodile. My friend suggested repeatedly that we should climb over the fence so we could get a photo with the “dead” crocodile.

Being five years younger apparently gave me greater clarity of mind because my repeating thought was, “Inside of a long time abandoned zoo, there wouldn’t be any fleshy animals. Not even a leathery croc.” My friend’s suggestion persisted.

So to try to test my concern, I pulled a hand full of low denomination yen coins from my pocket and tossed them one at a time at the croc. They just bounced off with no effects thus further convincing my friend that the croc was dead. I wasn’t going to literally throw all of my allowance away. So I stopped after tossing probably no more than seven or eight coins. At this point, I looked down - instead of out across the pond - to see my friend was already off the bridge and on the other side of the fence. But he hadn’t moved away from me yet...just down off the bridge.

I of course was convinced we were screwed and him more than me. My friend was already taking his first step away from me and towards the far end of the small pond for his photo op. I looked down on the floor of the bridge and saw a piece of cardboard about 10” square. I picked it up and threw it underhand just like a frisbee across the pond. It sailed about two feet above the water right towards the croc. And as my cardboard skimmed over the croc’s snout, the croc jumped up and snapped at the cardboard and then slowly slid back into the water.

At that point skinny me reached down, slid my hands under my friend’s arm pits, and lifted him right back up to the height of the bridge’s handrail and sat his sorry butt down on it. This was a second point in my day where I had to work really hard not to wet my short shorts.

Every time I think of this day, I think about how short my shorts were and just how absorbent they were not. So if I had let loose, I would have been walking around with stinky wet tennis shoes and glistening hairy legs.
 
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Okie dokie - chapter 4 - “The croc awaits!”

Quick reminder to set the scene but of course works best if you read my three prior related posts in this thread. At one point later in the day there were four of us together in this abandoned zoo, but at this point there are only two of us. I was a 14 year old skeletal kid and my friend was 19 and 50 to 60 pounds heavier than me.

So like my last post indicated, we stepped out of the temple/castle’s overgrown jungly structures and almost immediately into this abandoned zoo. Though the zoo was also seriously overgrown, many of the concrete walkways where still passable without needing to push bushes aside.

On one extreme end of the zoo there was a wood and metal bridge - not a bridge that spanned a void but one that was like an inverted “U”. It was essentially two sets of stairs climbing up bout 8-10’ and a very narrow platform between them to allow you to climb up then walk over something and then climb down the other side. There were certainly dilapidated signs posted but neither of us could read kanji so we had no clue what the signs said. We didn’t then and still don’t now...but in retrospect I could make some guesses.

So he and I do the inevitable which is follow the path to this little bridge and climb up it. We stopped midway to look across to see that the bridge allowed you to move up and over a fenced area. Inside that fenced area was a really dirty, scummy pond with a shallow edge. At the far end of the pond was...sticking partially out of the water...a “dead” crocodile. My friend suggested repeatedly that we should climb over the fence so we could get a photo with the “dead” crocodile.

Being five years younger apparently gave me greater clarity of mind because my repeating thought was, “Inside of a long time abandoned zoo, there wouldn’t be any fleshy animals. Not even a leathery croc.” My friend’s suggestion persisted.

So to try to test my concern, I pulled a hand full of low denomination yen coins from my pocket and tossed them one at a time at the croc. They just bounced off with no events further convincing my friend that the croc was dead. I wasn’t going to literally throw all of my allowance away. So I stopped after tossing probably no more than seven or eight coins. At this point, I looked down - instead of out across the pond - to see my friend was already off the bridge and on the other side of the fence. But he hadn’t moved away from me...just down off the bridge.

I of course was convinced we were screwed and him more than me. My friend was already taking his first step away from me and towards the far end of the small pond for his photo op. I looked down on the floor of the bridge and saw a piece of cardboard about 10” square. I picked it up and threw it underhand just like a frisbee across the pond. It sailed about two feet above the water right towards the croc. And as my cardboard skimmed over the croc’s snout, the croc jumped up and snapped at the cardboard and then slowly slid back into the water.

At that point skinny me reached down, slid my hands under my friend’s arm pits, and lifted him right back up to the height of the bridge’s handrail and sat his sorry butt down on it. This was a second point in my day where I had to work really hard not to wet my short shorts.

Every time I think of this day, I think about how short my shorts were and just how absorbent they were not. So if I had let loose, I would have been walking around with stinky wet tennis shoes and glistening hairy legs.
OMG! LOL A mother's nightmare! I read this and had flashbacks to my youngest when we lived in Florida.

He's my Aspie, and water + animals + no boundaries within his mind led to a similar event. We lived near a fenced in pond area that had a few gators. The kids knew DO NOT GO OVER THAT FENCE. One day my oldest came running in the house screaming "He went over the fence and went to see the gators!" Well, you would have thought my own shorts were on fire as this non athletic mom went flying out the door, jumped that fence in one flying leap (don't ask me how cuz I didn't think it was possible) and snagged my then 5 year old as the gator was approaching his out held hand full of his sandwich. I then somehow vaulted the two of us back over that dang fence and sat screaming and crying and hugging the kid for about 5 minutes. How he escaped our back yard WITH eyes on him by the other 5 boys back there I'll never know, but that still remains one of the greatest athletic feats of my life. :eek:
 
I’ve been to Whitehorse NWT, been on a 12 day expedition from Vernon BC toward Kamloops BC, seen nearly every performing and fine arts event in Edmonton, etc.

It’s crazy how much you’ll see in just Alberta and BC.
 
#4. Epic.
Deb, way to go !
My travels were all revolved my little sports thingy and Mom & Dad took us all over. My grandpa was a bookkeeper for the National Park Service. Talk about winning life's lottery. He lived 6 months out of the year surrounded by beauty. They gave him a cabin, everywhere he went. Off the job he hunted, fished, did photography, painted pictures, and knew everything about The Indians.
 
OMG! LOL A mother's nightmare! I read this and had flashbacks to my youngest when we lived in Florida.

He's my Aspie, and water + animals + no boundaries within his mind led to a similar event. We lived near a fenced in pond area that had a few gators. The kids knew DO NOT GO OVER THAT FENCE. One day my oldest came running in the house screaming "He went over the fence and went to see the gators!" Well, you would have thought my own shorts were on fire as this non athletic mom went flying out the door, jumped that fence in one flying leap (don't ask me how cuz I didn't think it was possible) and snagged my then 5 year old as the gator was approaching his out held hand full of his sandwich. I then somehow vaulted the two of us back over that dang fence and sat screaming and crying and hugging the kid for about 5 minutes. How he escaped our back yard WITH eyes on him by the other 5 boys back there I'll never know, but that still remains one of the greatest athletic feats of my life. :eek:

Holy Jurassic Park Debi. I felt a few of the emotions you might have been feeling then as I was just now reading your post. Hard to imagine how we as a species survive with same of the innocent acts like his that we perform around dangerous animals. Glad you were able to Wonder Woman the day.
 
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