The bale is waddling about on the tram platform in classic turtle fashion. It is entirely outside our operating capacity to get all of us on the same tram.
It is the beginning of the great dispersion. I don’t think all of us are together again until we rally at Chicken’s Magic Bus for departure. We see everybody someplace multiple times in the next couple of hours but as a group we move in a sort of kaleidoscopic fashion – separate, merge, split, join, divide, combine, detach, connect… And every new combination a thing of joyful beauty.
Sweetie Pie and I are on the second tram and turtles have already tottled off when we get to the falls. We head up the walk to the falls and I’m impressed at all the improvements since my last visit with the ex and kids. The old treehouse is gone, that’s a bummer, but the grounds are immaculate, much improved. It is a tropical paradise. We can hear the falls in the distance and the view as you approach the river is breathtaking. We stop for Sweetie Pie to catch hers. “Wow!” is all she can get out.
Mr. SpottyCatz thought “Wow!” too. When I look at this pic of him I also think “Wow!”
The place is very busy today but we don’t mind, they are big falls. Up to the swing and swim hole we go, by the time we get there turtles are already waterborne. They’ve installed a much more sophisticated swing than the last time I was there. There is still the big rope of the old swing hanging there but now on a platform a little ways up the hill there is a cable and pulley swing. In the old days you could swing off that rope from the side of the river or guides would take you to the edge of the falls hanging onto the rope and lift you up as you clung on for life before swinging.
There are piles of wet blue gloves on the platform below the swing and we each grab a pair and head up to the launch site. Anticipation builds until suddenly you’re grabbing a rope over your head and told “Go!” You’re staring at a wall of crashing whitewater as you slide out the cable. The pulley reaches its limit and the rope starts to swing toward the fluid pandemonium. It seems like you’ll be able to jump into the falls but it’s really not possible. Timing your release, however, can get you CLOSE to the falls. Sweetie Pie and I both do pretty good and before you know it we’re with a contingent of turtles playing in the water. I splash a little but the adrenaline rush from the swing has me jonesin’. I’m going again and ask Sweetie Pie if she wants to go too. “Once is enough, I think,” she says, ”but you should go.” So I do. You know what? That swing takes it out of you a little bit. More than I thought. I don’t launch nearly as well or as far. I get pushed in toward the rocks past the swing platform because I’m just kind of floating after my swing and end up having to swim a little hard to stay away from them. Still, well worth it but I don’t need a third swing.
I’m on my way again…
And Sweetie Pie and the gang are watching…
And this is the new swing. I think this is GonJon throwing it out there…
Originally Posted by Guirigay
