Infiltration

On Friday, I met up with my friend Brian for the year's first official "train-hopping" session at our usual spot.
We arrived just after midnight. The weather was absolutely perfect, and spirits were high (not alcohol - THAT would be stupid). Immediately after we parked, we heard the first train coming. Dashing up to the tracks, we realized it was going too fast. We opted for initial photos of the promising evening, complete with portraits in the classic track-side hobo camp fashion.
It wasn't long at all 'till the perfect train came by. Slow enough to get on, but not slow enough to be boring.

Man, it turned out to be action-packed! I'm serious, every time we rode for awhile and jumped off, another train came by to bring us back. In the course of 3 hours we must have been on board at least half the time!
One time while jumping off, Brian ran into a prickly bush that wasn't easily seen in the shadows. He instinctively bounced back to avoid being scraped. I immediately realized that his head was about to be hit by the next passing ladder. I pushed him back into the bush, knowing that he would rather be cut up than dead.

* Please don't take this as a recommendation for a new hobby.
It's not safe to make a moving train a playhouse.

Saturday night was a little more relaxed. I picked up my friend Jeremy and drove over to Minnehaha park. I described a place that was shown to me last fall that I wanted to photograph. Since Jeremy is also a photographer, he was interested in joining me.
We arrived at the location and proceeded to enter. The first part is a long, dirty, wet, spider-filled, claustrophobia-creating crawl through broken glass and scattered underground-type crickets.
I was far ahead of Jeremy, and I had reached a shaft with old, rusty rungs leading to an overhead extension of the recently-exited pipe, not to mention a manhole lid that was unfortunately out of reach. While I waited for him to catch up, I battled the diseases and freaky creatures scurrying over and under the rocks and other debris. I clambered up the decent-most rungs and hovered over the bottom while I waited.
Soon, I began to think "What the hell?", so I shouted, "Did you give up?". He answered yes and "indicated" that he was on his way out. AGH!! I ended up battling my way back out for NO REASON!! He said that he had become a victim of the claustrophobic inducement properties of the culvert.
SO, we went to the Amphitheater drain and photographed the big-ass waterslide instead. That was fun anyway, but dammit, now I have to make that crawl AGAIN someday!
I'm looking forward to it.

[last edit 5/10/2005 3:08 AM by Gatsby - edited 1 times]
Modify Entry

Comments: (use Reply to add a comment)

Infiltration Forums > Journal Index > missions of Gatsby > random crap from the weekend(Viewed 1995 times)

Add a poll to this thread

This thread is in a public category, and can't be made private.