It was a bright, warm Thanksgiving afternoon...If you are from Colorado, you know what I mean. Being Thanksgiving, I thought I should take a chance and go in, because Police were not as heavily patrolling the general area of Platte ave out east.

I walked up to the outfall, smelling the damp air, I reached into my pack and pulled out my trusty Black and Decker Spotlighter (hardcore old-school yo!) and clicked it on, I went in. About fifty feet in, the drain curved to the right, and this was also a manhole. Not the square room style, but instead, a more steamlined type built into the actual pipe itself. A vertical shaft was laid onto the pipe, the Pipe was cut out in the shape of the manhole riser, and then all was cemented/mortered in place. I didnt even know it was a manhole until I looked up. I was quite close to the surface, as all of this drain was, maybe the deepest spot was six to eight feet underground... Now, after construction, there are parts maybe 10-12 feet, but there wasn't much change to the depth of it at all...

I turned back at this manhole, because I knew where it ended, and what it was like at the other end... No need to go there, for there is deep-ish water at the other end, making exit hard at best in regular footwear like I was wearing that day...

In 2002, the Silver Creek development was completed. During construction, I noted that they were laying 2-foot RCPs in the parking lot, and tapped into the very manhole room I had popped out of just a year prior. When I popped out of this, it was a grassy/muddy field with survey stakes and a bulldozer at the Wooten road side of the property.

I would use these manholes over then next few months as "training" so that I could pop manholes with speed and skill... From both below AND from top-side. And then close them in seconds, and run like a bastard from the "police" who were actually my friends at the time. We always held "drills" like this to keep our UE and draining skills at their peak...