A long rope
Kate was getting all cocky, and repeatedly made mistakes. First she wasn't able to land properly, then she banged her shins on the tree roots, then she couldn't land on the far side of the water without getting pulled back, out of control.
We were at Stuhstaft Park in Redwood City at the site of Kate's current obsession: the rope swing. It's not much of a swing---just a rope that hangs conveniently over a 5-6' wide stretch of water, perfectly suited for launching out over the water. It's probably dangerous and there's no good way to test the rope for safety, but....there it is, and it's amazing.
I have a shiny new Nintendo 3DS at home. I haven't turned it on more than twice, but somehow I've managed to spend an hour and half every Friday tromping through this stream, jumping from rock to rock and swinging on ropes. It's like Mario Brothers, but we're doing it live.
We deemed it "Pokey Stick", a long branch I had acquired originally to poke at the bottom of the stream, but then used as a tripod leg to more easily leap from rock to rock. It was great, but at this point both of us had missed enough that our shoes were dripping wet.
We followed the stream around two big bends to find the end of the park, where it exited under a tumbledown barb wire fence into a deep channel heading straight to the bay. Uncontrolled erosion has exposed tree branches, cement post settings, and water pipes. The infrastructure in California is in such terrible repair that this all sits in benign neglect, resembling more and more a third-world country.
We were at Stuhstaft Park in Redwood City at the site of Kate's current obsession: the rope swing. It's not much of a swing---just a rope that hangs conveniently over a 5-6' wide stretch of water, perfectly suited for launching out over the water. It's probably dangerous and there's no good way to test the rope for safety, but....there it is, and it's amazing.
I have a shiny new Nintendo 3DS at home. I haven't turned it on more than twice, but somehow I've managed to spend an hour and half every Friday tromping through this stream, jumping from rock to rock and swinging on ropes. It's like Mario Brothers, but we're doing it live.
We deemed it "Pokey Stick", a long branch I had acquired originally to poke at the bottom of the stream, but then used as a tripod leg to more easily leap from rock to rock. It was great, but at this point both of us had missed enough that our shoes were dripping wet.
We followed the stream around two big bends to find the end of the park, where it exited under a tumbledown barb wire fence into a deep channel heading straight to the bay. Uncontrolled erosion has exposed tree branches, cement post settings, and water pipes. The infrastructure in California is in such terrible repair that this all sits in benign neglect, resembling more and more a third-world country.