Wet Willies

More pictures from my day trip with Tom on August 9th. This time, an old abandoned water slide out in Valley Park. I spent more than a few summer days out there, but as the years have rolled past, my bearings got way off track. Tom, who had never visited before, knew where things were better than I did. It's kinda like being spun around and around, then asked to walk in a straight line. You know where things are, but getting there is a little difficult.

In fact, Tom dived (Get it? Water humor! Okay, they can't all be funny.) right in while I hung back, taking it all in.

It was obvious that we were not the first people to visit since the park's closing. I think I read somewhere that kids like to skateboard in here, but from the amount of graffiti, who would have time? I'm not one who appreciates most spray paint art, but the sheer magnitude made the water park seem like an art installation.

Above are the steps to the 'fast' slide. Not my favorite run as it was over so quick. But would love to go pack and walk the length to see if it was indeed shorter in distance as well as time.

We didn't get very far, not even halfway down the slide, before Tom wanted to get his camera. Alas, we had a visitor waiting for us by my car. The police officer was way cool, but that ended that leg of the day. So this is a poor idea of the depth of the water slide, but you can see the tandem slides from this angle.

I'm also standing just past the area of the slide that all kids loved... the peeling paint that allowed kids to slow down and have their friends meet up with them to make a chain. I'm sure it wasn't safe at all to have four, six, eight, ten kids -- two to a mat -- hit the pool at the bottom all at the same time.

Instead of satisfying my curiosity, visiting the old Wet Willies Water Slide has only made me want to see more of it. I know I'm too old to poke around in places I shouldn't (some might even call it trespassing), but I was too scared when I was younger.

Maybe I'm having a mid-life crisis early...

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TGI Friday!

I had a job interview today. Even if I got the offer, I wouldn't take it. Was the most bee-zarre interview ever! They deal with pest control (hence the 'bee' ~ and yes, I think I’m clever ~ don’t spoil it for me) and I'm not sure how I feel about hawking product that kills mammals, like moles and whatnot.

But that aside, the guy who interviewed me was so out there that I can't even stand it! He wore shorts and a vacation t-shirt while I was wearing a suit. Okay, casual Friday, I get that. But I don’t think he even read my resume. He hopscotched all over my jobs, education and references. He then proceeded to ask about laser hair removal because I have two people as references who perform the service at the spa I used to work at. He thought that I performed the service and wanted to know about the training. It was obvious that he was a skeptic, but what does that have to do with my qualifications? I told him that I never actually performed the service myself, so I couldn't tell him about training.

He repeatedly went back to laser hair removal. I almost wished I had a menu of services from the spa despite the fact that I quit at the end of February.

But… he also seemed to think that he knew one of my other references. I hope he’s more focused when they get together – if they do indeed know one another – because he really hurt my head.

He then asked all sorts of dippy questions... Did I know the mayor of Crestwood? Did I meet any rich people at St. Patrick Center (his words... rich people)? Did I bring any samples of my design work (for a receptionist position)? Did I go to Ursuline High School? What’s my favorite neighborhood in the city? If he wanted to find me on the internet, where could he go to get information? Do I have a Facebook page (I told him that I wasn't that cool)? Do I have a MySpace page (again, not that cool)? What kind of cellphone do I own? Do I own an iPod? What kind of music do I like? What was the last concert I went to? Is Tom Waits really all that great? Why is Bob Dylan more popular? What's the next concert I'm going to (Nine Inch Nails, btw)? How many times have I see Nine Inch Nails in concert? Who opened for them last time? Did I buy their most recent album or just download the free version? Have I ever seen Tool in concert?

Twenty minutes about music. None spent on my qualifications, other than it looks like I can't hold a job. Great.

But he did tell me that I have great taste in music.

As he walked out of the room, he did tell me that my hair was 'hot.' What the hell does that mean? Was that a come on or was it just that he thought it was very current?

I also got parting gifts. Ant killer spray and traps.

Please don’t be jealous. If you can help me get a job, I’ll gladly part with them.
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Zombie Road

As promised, pictures of my expedition last Saturday (August 9th) with Tom. I won't rehash too many details from the trip since I previously did so, but I will break up the postings according to where the pictures are from.



Now, I didn't take hardly any shots of Zombie Road because, quite frankly, shots of crumbling road with thick vegetation on both sides, extending seemingly Heavenward, just isn't that exciting. I kept waiting for an abandoned structure or two, but it would seem that Tom and I didn't hike far enough

(Although I think we hiked plenty far as it was, thank you very much.)

When we came across this washout, I thought we had hit the end of the road. Tom thought otherwise and after he made it across to see if the road did indeed continue on around the bend, I soon joined him and we hiked another good half mile or more. Time and distance seem to dissolve when one cannot see the sky because of the dense trees.

Let me point out that the gully is deeper than it looks. I'd say it's about 4 feet deep, give or take a half foot in different areas.






I really think, and really hope, that this set of stairs is just a natural occurrence. The road below is washed out, showing the layers of the bedrock. Seeing the natural striations in the stone was pretty hip, but then made me question their actual naturalness, since the uniformity was so even. Was it the foundation for the road? The road had existed for decades prior to paving, so were we seeing the previous incarnations?

But the stairs were pretty interesting and definitely added to the spooky mood. I'm sure Tom was actually so over my girlie-girl routine, but aside from abandoned beer bottles, a blanket that had seen much better days draped over a limb and a trash can (Trash cans as trash seems slightly oxymoronic to me.), this was by far the most interesting thing we happened upon. Well, that and the road Tom's GPS said came in onto Lawler Ford Road, but never appeared.

If it is indeed an abandoned set of stairs to a long gone building, I'd be curious to know more about it.

And when I do go back, I'll hike to the end and find the buildings that are supposedly down by the Meramec, if they survived the last go-round of flooding.
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In the Pink!

For this, I will gladly pay slightly higher ticket prices. (Although I still don't understand why airlines DON'T want people to check their bags and instead want them to bring on the plane. Doesn't make one iota of sense to me.)

Taken from the Abilene ReporterNews.

Monday, August 11, 2008 -- The 40 volunteers who applied a full-length pink ribbon and logo to the side of an airplane over the weekend knew it was for a good cause -- they just didn't know it was going to be so much fun.

"It's like a big model airplane," Joe Buie said, gazing at the finished product.

Monday morning, American Airlines unveiled the handiwork of the Abilene volunteers, who are among American Eagle's 400 employees here.

The Embraer regional jet is the first of a fleet that will tout American's sponsorship of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure campaign to fight breast cancer.

A pink ribbon decal, the Komen foundation's trademark symbol, stretched from the tail of the jet to the cockpit. The Susan G. Komen For the Cure logo covered the cowling of the engines.

The newly decorated plane took off for the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on Monday morning following a news conference announcing an expanded partnership between the Komen foundation and American Airlines.

The jet that flew out of Abilene was scheduled to join a similar plane flying in from Tulsa. The two planes are among the eight that will carry the Komen logo for the next eight years.

The expanded partnership announced Monday names American Airlines as the Komen for the Cure's official airline and first Lifetime Promise Partner. American has pledged to contribute $1 million a year for eight years to the fight against breast cancer.

The first Promise Grant will fund a $7.5 million project at M.D. Anderson's Morgan Welch Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Program and Clinic in Houston.

A large contingent of city officials and American Eagle representatives gathered early Monday in the Eagle Aviation Services hangar at Abilene Regional Airport to make the announcement.

Also present were a number of breast cancer survivors, including an American Eagle flight attendant and the wife of one of the volunteers who decorated the plane.

Diana Rowden, vice president for health sciences at the Komen foundation, noted that American Airlines partnered with Komen in 1988. American sponsors numerous events each year benefiting Komen for the Cure.

The eight planes that will carry the Komen logo to cities serviced by American and American Eagle will further spread awareness of the fight against breast cancer, Rowden said.

"This is simply quite terrific," she said.

The 40 American Eagle volunteers who worked on the plane for 12 hours Saturday and four hours Sunday thought so, too.

The plane was flown into Abilene Regional Airport on Friday night, washed and prepped for its new logo. Getting 40 volunteers for the project was no problem.

"This is Abilene," said Kris Finch, one of the volunteers. "People are proud to work here."

The work was tedious, but fun, they said. The pink ribbon decal came in 21 sections per side or 42 pieces total to put together. First, a stencil was taped to the plane and outlined. Then the stencil was removed and the adhesive ribbon was stuck to the plane.

The plane will fly with the logo for six years and then will get a different version. A lot of air miles will be logged in those six years. The Abilene volunteers were unfazed by the possibility of the logo peeling off in that time.

"If it does," Buie said, "we'll just fix it."

By Loretta Fulton
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A Little History...

I have been itching to have an adventure. And not one of those spur of the moment types of adventures. None of that, “Let’s go to the Art Museum” eureka moments when you’re bored. I’m talking about one of those days where you finally do something you’ve “been meaning to do” for an indeterminate amount of time, but never have seemed to find the time until right then and there? Yesterday, I – and Tom – got an adventure. And then some.

Lately I’ve been a kick to embrace more local St. Louis history. Google maps, Microsoft Virtual Earth and the World Wide Web have become my playground as I find more and more vanishing – and not-so-vanishing, but very obscure – places I want to visit.

And of late, I have become enamored with the Meramec Highland. I find the idea of the remnants of a resort community just minutes from my house very… charming. Cottages populated the area just south of Big Bend, west of 270 for summer travelers just prior to the 20th century. Most are gone, but the few that remain are now private homes. Driving along the relaxed, twisty roads was like going back to another time. And place. I didn’t feel like I was in Kirkwood any longer, but rather somewhere more coastal. If I had rolled down the windows, I think I would have been disappointed not to smell the ocean.

All the homes look like a beach house should, except they all have their own distinct personalities. And most have charming little names. Again, I find the idea of homes with names absolutely charming.

I am sure that Tom did not appreciate my girly squeals as I read the names aloud with delight.

But the point of taking Tom to the Meramec Highlands was the train tunnel. I honestly can’t believe I introduced him to something train related in the St. Louis community, but I was glad that he got as big a kick out of the sealed up tunnel as I had hoped.

The tunnel is set back down a ways in a rock valley, a valley which was actually man-made in order to have the train tunnel. The tunnel itself is about 500 feet long and once you’ve seen it, there isn’t much else. But it’s quaint and absolutely a delight to see. It really does take you back to days gone by. It’s bricked up three fourths of the way up, with the rest covered up with bars to allow bats a place to roost. Some people had bent the bars back in certain spots to crawl through to the other side, but as curious as I was to see the other side (which I think is on private property), I did not want to crawl through bat guano.

I was disappointed that I couldn’t get on top of the tunnel, as it ascends way higher up than any of the pictures I saw on the internet indicated. Other people who visited have posted on the internet of climbing up, though goodness knows how, to see the hotel and fountain ruins. Very jealous of these people, but I am not willing to break my neck to see what I’m sure what has been mostly reclaimed by nature.

After the Highlands, I had the brilliant idea of hitting the Dee Koestering Park at The Meramec Highlands Quarry. When I say brilliant, I really mean idiotic. Never go to a park with trails without looking at a map of it online first. Learn from my mistakes. This park, while amazingly beautiful, could gain a widerspread popularity if they offered Segways to get up and down the hills.

Because I refuse to believe I’m that out of shape.

After we survived the park, we drove to Greentree Park and did only a cursory look for the old remains of the McConnell’s Beach house. We did find the remote control car track, but after the dirty looks that were shot our way, Tom and I headed over to Valley Park to get some much needed beverages.

On the way to a gas station, Tom had the cool idea of hitting Wet Willie's Water Slide. A fixture in my youth, the slide is now shuttered and abandoned. But certainly not forgotten, if the amount of graffiti covering the slide can act like a barometer.

There were three slides that made up the waterpark and I walked some of the length of one of them in bemused detachment, trying to remember some of my visits from my childhood. But all I could recall was getting sick from eating too soon before sliding… and the area of the slide where the paint was rough and we’d slow down enough to have our friends catch up with us. Otherwise, it was as if I was a stranger.

I shot off a couple of images with my camera, but Tom had left his in the car. As we walked back so he could grab his, we saw that we weren’t alone. The police officer was extremely cool, especially since he saw that we were indeed taking pictures instead of vandalizing or making out, and just patiently waited for us to leave.

After we headed off to greener pastures, we ended up at a wooded pasture. Of sorts. Lone Elk Park. It was nice and relaxing, especially the couple who thought feeding the elk would make the visit more memorable. Tom and I kept waiting for the lady to get a horn shoved in an uncomfortable place, but instead of an action-packed outing, it was rather staid. The elk wasn’t interested in the offered vitals and lazily wandered over to the rest of the herd.

I had never seen so many elk calves, nor had I seen so many congregating together. But it was a wonderful sight and made up for the lack of bison sighting. Which amounted to zero.

After the park, I wanted to try and find Lawler Ford Road, otherwise known as “Zombie Road.” It was getting late, so we stopped at the Long John Silver’s/A&W on Manchester for some grub. Deep fried fish and chicken along with fountain A&W. It doesn’t get much better than that. Except, did you know that you can get 12 hush puppies for a dollar? We soon found out that too much of a good thing can be a not-as-good-a-thing as it sounds.

Bellies full, we found the road exactly according to the directions I found on the internet. It’s an old paved road, about two miles in length, in Wildwood. Nestled in the belly of a valley of woods and other plant life, I can see how people get creeped out being there. The area is almost in complete shadow because of the amount of vegetation and water has created gullies, washing out the road in a few places and damaging the pavement in most others.

We didn’t walk the full length, but at some time I want to go back and see if I can find the abandoned shacks and beach cottages that are supposedly still standing. The road ends at the Meramec River and it was used mainly to haul freight, so I’m not too sure about the use of summer homes at the end of the road, but I do know that rail lines ran parallel along the length of the river.

It’s very obvious that the area is widely used due to the amount of discarded beverages – generally of the alcoholic kind – and other bits of random abandoned personal items. Trees were also tagged with pink tape, as if marked for trimming, as well as felled trees being clean-cut by chainsaws and moved off the road.

The name ‘Zombie Road’ comes from the stories of a man named Zombie who lived in a dilapidated shack by the river and murdered young lovers looking for an out of the way place. In the 70’s, a man was supposedly killed by a train and a boy fell to his death from the bluffs. Again, I’m not sure how much of that is true, but it makes creeping yourself out when walking the road so much easier.

We opted to cruise down to Sherman Beach Park and had a grand old time skipping stones and watching the sun dip lower and lower. I rather enjoyed wandering around the beach and watching Tomskip stones because he is way better than I am. When I am properly protected against the amount of mosquitoes that are in the area, I want to go back with him and learn his technique.

Yes Tom, I am jealous of your wrist action.

There was more girly squealing on my part when we left the beach, as there were little itty-bitty toads everywhere. We tried not to smush them, but it was nigh on impossible. And then there was tall grass to run through, before circumventing a shallow pit of stagnant water.

The town of Sherman is very near-by, so we swung through – although not without adventure. I took a road in the tiny little hamlet that turns from paved to gravel in an instant, so after turning around in someone’s driveway, we headed back the way we came.

Tom guided me over to 44 and we headed back to my neck of the woods. After all that, we needed some frozen custard!

We passed two school buses from Oklahoma that has bright strobe lights going to town on the roofs, and although I’ve seen crazy little siren lights on other buses, these lights were large and bright enough to be calling the mother ship to suck them up off the pavement. On any other day, it would have been merely annoying. But because of the nature of the day’s activities… it was downright weird.

Exiting the highway, we came full circle back to Kirkwood. Home of the best frozen custard ever. Except that the Custard Station was PACKED! It is good custard, but it was beyond crazy. And beyond rude. Very much a bummer, but we consoled ourselves with Ben & Jerry’s. Which wasn’t as packed, but was filled with extremely loud pre-teens. And lots of them.

But they were playing Nine Inch Nails in the store. How can you go wrong with a little Trent? And damn good ice cream is damn good ice cream. So we smirked at the kids, places our order and went outside to eat in peace. It was a gorgeous night, so sitting outside was probably the best course of action anyway. But watching the kids listed at the bathroom door worried me. What were the unseen children behind the door doing? Do I really want to know?

A trip to Borders to get Tom a map of Illinois for future adventures of his own rounded out the night.

Next adventure on the horizon? Castlewood State Park and how to view the Kaes House. If you have any ideas, I’d be happy to hear ‘em!

Oh, and I promise to post some pictures once I figure out how to upload them!
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Avast!

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Captain Jack Sparrow Roguish,quick-witted, and incredibly lucky, Jack Sparrow is a pirate who sometimes ends up being a hero, against his better judgement. Captain Jack looks out for #1, but he can be counted on (usually) to do the right thing. He has an incredibly persuasive tongue, a mind that borders on genius or insanity, and an incredible talent for getting into trouble and getting out of it. Maybe its brains, maybe its genius, or maybe its just plain luck. Or maybe a mixture of all three. Captain Jack Sparrow 88% Maximus 79% Lara Croft 71% The Amazing Spider-Man 58% Indiana Jones 54% The Terminator 54% William Wallace 54% El Zorro 50% Batman, the Dark Knight 42% James Bond, Agent 007 38% Neo, the "One" 33%

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The Great Male Survey Results...

I happened upon the results of The Great Male Survey Results on AskMen.com. Why is it that I find survey results from men, especially when pertaining to matters of the opposite sex, ever so much more fascinating? Don't follow the link if sex offends. Read more! Read more!