I'd promised my little brother that I'd take him draining (South Belmont Tunnel), so today it'd finally cleared up so my friend (hereafter referred to as "Arnold") rode home with me on the bus and we got all of our stuff on. I had my maglight, a camo jacket w/ batteries in the pockets, and knee-deep waders. "Arnold" had some mid-shin rubber boots, a plastic flashlight (I forget the model, but it works pretty well, and is waterproof), and a blue winter coat. My little brother, "James", had some winter boots (waterproof) and a jacket.
This time we entered by walking in the woods, as the guy whose backyard this drain is in has noticed our activities. We stopped at 3rd light to make fun of a mean dog, then went into the crawly spot. We found a pumpkin, busted up, hollowed out but uncarved. We kicked it around a bit before squashing it. After that it was 54" RCP all the way. My and "Arnold" would turn off our flashlight and scare "James". On the way back, I didn't want to crawl through the dirty water again, so we pushed up a small manhole (the kind with an "X" of metal bars on the underside), and climbed up into "Lawn Mow Alley", so called because at any one time, about 90% of the inhabitants of this area are mowing their lawns. We came out as quickly and quietly as possible, but I'm sure a few people saw us. It was kind of weird, looking down into the manhole. Maybe it was the oxygen deprivation (JK, the air wasn't too bad here), but it felt like I was peering into a different world. Like a cross-section or something. Hard to describe. We left the manhole open a crack to allow more air in for future use. On the way back I had to run from two people I knew, wanting to know why I was staggering around people's backyards soaked to the knees in smelly water. Overall, a succesful exploration (we also found the cat skeleton in the creek outside the drain, so I guess that's gone).
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