Misc data and adventures of a Tayopa treasure hunter

[PROSPECTORMIKEL]

ROCKHOUND,

I CAN'T FIGURE OUT IF THIS GUY SHOULD BE A FAIR WEATHER FRIEND, AND BE AVOIDED IN THE RAIN, OR...
THE GUY YOU WANT TO BE WITH DURING A STORM.... AT A SMALL DISTANCE.
HE SOUNDS LIKE HE WOULD BE A GOOD LIGHTENING ROD TO DRAW IT AWAY FROM EVERYONE ELSE.
I HAVE BEEN KNOCKED DOWN BY LIGHTENING STRIKES A FEW TIMES, BUT THAT WAS BECAUSE
I WORKED AS A LUMBER GRADER AND STOOD ON A METAL TABLE AND WALKED BACKWARDS OVER LUMBER AS IT WENT DOWN A LIVE CHAIN. IT WOULD COME THRU THE METAL IF LIGHTENING STRUCK THE GROUND NEAR THE MILL. IT WOULD DROP ME LIKE A WET TOWEL.
I WOULD GET OFF THE TABLE AND GRADE THE LUMBER THE HARD WAY TILL THE SKY WOULD CLEAR UP.

HAPPY HUNTING GUYS AND KEEP THE STORIES COMING,
WE ALL NEED TO KEEP IT UP IF WE ARE GOING TO KEEP THIS AS THE HOTTEST THREAD ON TNET!!

MIKEL

 

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[poorhunter78]

Had a neighbor at my homeplace where I grew up, Lightning hit a Tree. Their were 4 or 5 cows near the tree. It jumped from cow to cow and killed them. Not 1 month later it happened again, Same Ridge, Same Tree. I Know he lost His Breeder Bull and a lot of cows. He used dozer for burial, Then cut every tree down on that ridge. Used to be the best Squirrel huntin.
Truckin I think You know this Fella?

 

[Goodyguy]

My father worked construction after WWII and was a pastor of a small church on Sundays.
Before the war he had worked for the Monon Railroad same as his father before him.

After I was born he had started working for the Army Corps of Engineers building dams up and down the Ohio River, the last one being lock and dam 41 at Louisville Kentucky.

Seems we were always moving from one dam job to another.
I had been transferred to 5 or 6 different schools by the time I was in the 5th grade.
Needless to say making friends was difficult as I was always the new kid
at school.

One of the ways I chose to become popular was by being a daredevil. I remember once when I was in the 1st grade, being tossed back and forth by my older brother 9 years my senior and one of his new friends one morning while waiting for the school bus to arrive.

They decided to see how far apart they could get and still catch me. Wasn't long before I was dropped and landed on my hard head making a small cut and a knot right in the middle, I was ok but the school bus came and we went to school. In the meantime the blood had matted my hair and formed a clot. At some point I must have been rubbing the area and caused the blood to start running down my face.

Next thing I know the teacher was in a panic and I was being whisked off to the school nurse, parents contacted and then to the doctor for stitches (only three). Anyway this story was only to introduce how at an early age I became used to stitches, brusies, and showing off as a way to get attention.

Back when I was a youngster, on Saturdays kids were sent outside to play and weren't expected home much except to eat or before dark. Due to my adventurous nature I was always getting in trouble for coming in late and with torn, wet, and muddy clothes.

Once when I was about 8 years old, I headed out to play and explore as usual. This time I met another daredevil a little younger than myself and I convinced him to go exploring. Wasn't long before we found the railroad tracks, and started walking them stopping every so often to throw rocks at birds and such. As fate would have it we came to a very long narrow RR trestle crossing a river that was 40 or 50 feet below the trestle.

Of course first thing we did was climb up on the side rails and did our tightrope act waving our arms to keep balance. Going further and further out from the relative safety of the less than 10 foot drop to the ground to ever and ever further drop as we neared the river, trying to see who would chicken out first. He was on one side of the trestle and I was on the other.

To my relief he chickened out before we got over the river. So then we started walking the rails to see who would loose his balance first. The next thing that happened struck terror in both our hearts............To be continued

GG~

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

HI goody guy, you were killed?

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[PROSPECTORMIKEL]

DON JOSE,
DID YOU TEACH HIM HOW TO WRITE CLIFF HANGERS?!
GOODY GUY, I KNEW YOU HAD SOME GOOD STUFF YOU WERE SITTING ON. CAN'T WAIT!!

DON JOSE, I HAVE BEEN SCARED HALF TO DEATH, TWICE, DOES THAT COUNT AS BEING KILLED?

I'M GONNA GO GATHER SOME MORE WOOD FOR THE CAMP FIRE. I'LL BE BACK.


MIKEL

 

[truckinbutch]

Poorhunter ,
That'd be Fred F____ , I expect . Had the same thing happen here last summer with a brand new
registered hereford bull . 2 weeks into a new 25 cow herd and he got struck in the forehead and it
cooked him to the tail root . Standing in a clear field . Too much lead in his pencil , mebbie .
Goody ,
I may have gone to school with you . My buddies and I (from before 1st grade on) were unrestrained house apes . Whatever we got in our hands , inside or out , became something to throw at each other . Our only restive moments inside were in front of a snowy 1 channel black and white tv . B westerns , Tarzan , Frank Buck , Martin and Osa Johnson .
We tried to emulate all that input when the weather cleared enough for us to go outside ...........
As only ignorant kids with dreams can do .................................

 

[Goodyguy]

As you may have guessed a fast approaching train came bearing down on us as we had made our way to the center of the trestle and was in the middle of a spitting contest trying to hit a floating log in the river.

There was no room to get off to the side and no way we could outrun the train and too scared to jump (couldn't swim anyway)

We looked at each other in panic and then looked down between the cross ties, sure enough there was room to slip down between them and there was a pipe we could hang onto. A fast decision was made and so there we were hanging onto a pipe for dear life 50 feet over the river, feet barely reaching a cross brace while a freight train was speeding just inches overhead trying to shake us off into certain death.

Folks............ talk about scared........ I thought that train was never going to clear the trestle. I was praying for a miracle and made many promises to the Lord. Somehow we managed to hang on the whole time and were relieved but exhausted when the train finally passed. The panic set back in when we realized we could not pull ourselves back up to safety and we started yelling for help.

I believe my prayers were answered when a nearby hunter heard our cries.

We could hear someone calling to us and could feel the trestle shake as the hunter ran across the trestle to pull us up.

After that experience, life was never the same.
I became more cautious..........still love adventure but keep more prepared and use a lot more sense.

Since then I have had several life and death encounters of different natures but will always feel, that when it's your time to go there is nothing you can do to prevent it. Just stay right with the Lord and you'll be ready when your time comes.

May God bless you as I have been blessed,
GG~

 

[truckinbutch]

Good story and very good advice also. Looking back,I guess we all have had our close calls of one kind or another.Been there done that,except I ran to the other end of the trestle and jumped over a bank,almost killing myself in the process.Good Luck. rockhound

Ya gotta be alive to tell about the close ones . The fact that a person is alive to relate the first story and many others is proof of an adventurous spirit and a slow learning curve .
Many had only one close call and never did anything again . I never sought such a sedentary life .
Just like many of the readers here .
C'mon ! More stories ! The life you save by sharing wisdom might be a kid you could learn to like that never learns these things at home .
The crusty old farts in my community spent time teaching those of us they liked how to perpetrate good trouble and how to get out of bad .

 

[mrs.oroblanco]

Goodyguy - great story - and it brings back memories from my childhood.

We had a railroad bridge in our town - the local "parking" spot was up by the top of the hill that goes to the bridge. But, back in the ages before caring about a date, the "dare" was to get all away across the bridge. Not on the rr tracks, but, underneath the tracks. The bridge (a picture of which I will include) had arches right under the tracks. On these arches, were steel "steps" - actually they looked like big, flattened U clamps. Even back then in the 60's, a good number of them were loose, missing, crumbling and shaky. But - crossing under there was kind of like a right of passage.

So - one day, my girlfriend and I took our shot. It was slow going, and, after about an hour, it looked like we were going to make it all the way across, without dying. That's when an unscheduled (in our point of view) decided to come rumbling down the tracks. I never held on to anything harder in my life as I did that piece of steel that was in my hand. I swear, it was the longest train that had been across the bridge in ages - it took an hour to get by - well, not really, it just felt like it - I actually had blisters from holding on. After the train passed, we realized that we were almost in the middle of the bridge - go back-or-continue to the other side. So, we continued to the other side, with a few friends waiting at the other end with a case of beer. (we never had trouble getting beer where I come from). I needed more than beer - I needed new underwear.



Beth


The first is a picture of the bridge. The second picture has a couple of markings of where you travel across the bridge.

 

[Goodyguy]

Beth, I would say you definitely earned your right of passage

GG~

 

[mdog]

Good story Mrs. Oroblanco. If I had ever seen my daughter in a place like that, I probably would have had a stroke. Just looking at the pictures of the bridge gives me butterflies.

 

[poorhunter78]

Yes Truckin You are correct Fred ______! The Lock & dam From earlier post: Hildebrand.

 

[truckinbutch]

Rockhound ,
That story certainly brings back early memories of pain . Mebbie it really did require a real cape to
make it work as planned

 

[PROSPECTORMIKEL]

GOODY GUY, I KNEW THAT YOU HAD SOME GREAT STORIES.. I KNEW IT!!!

MRS. O....
..
YOU ARE AWESOME!!!

ROCK HOUND I KNOW WHAT MAKES YOUR BRAIN TICK... I PICKED UP ON SUPERMAN AND THOUGHT THAT THE CAPE WAS WHAT MADE HIM FLY. YEP, I TRIED IT OFF THE TOP OF MY GRANDFATHER'S GARAGE. BOUNCED OFF THE FRONT OF HIS CAR THEN LANDED ON MY REAR IN THE DIRT AND AFTER LIVING THRU ALL OF THAT I THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO BEAT ME TO DEATH. I OUT RAN HIM ONLY BECAUSE I COULD RUN FASTER SCARED THAN HE COULD RUN ANGRY. UNFORTUNATELY FOR ME, HE KNEW WHERE I LIVED.

 

[truckinbutch]

GOODY GUY, I KNEW THAT YOU HAD SOME GREAT STORIES.. I KNEW IT!!!

MRS. O....
..
YOU ARE AWESOME!!!

ROCK HOUND I KNOW WHAT MAKES YOUR BRAIN TICK... I PICKED UP ON SUPERMAN AND THOUGHT THAT THE CAPE WAS WHAT MADE HIM FLY. YEP, I TRIED IT OFF THE TOP OF MY GRANDFATHER'S GARAGE. BOUNCED OFF THE FRONT OF HIS CAR THEN LANDED ON MY REAR IN THE DIRT AND AFTER LIVING THRU ALL OF THAT I THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO BEAT ME TO DEATH. I OUT RAN HIM ONLY BECAUSE I COULD RUN FASTER SCARED THAN HE COULD RUN ANGRY. UNFORTUNATELY FOR ME, HE KNEW WHERE I LIVED.

BWAHAHAHAHA You better quit reading our mail or come to the family reunion

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Beth. gentlemen, you are doing a wonderful job. I am impressed. Being an addict -> = MORE MORE !! However Beth, where are Roy's confessions ?

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[Oroblanco]

Don Jose, Tropical Tramp extraordinaire wrote

Incidentally Beth / Oro, you both are sadly lacking in here. <snip, and also>
...where are Roy's confessions ?

Well I have been enjoying the stories of others, and should not each member share at least one story, sort of the 'price of admission' ? No? Besides, I sure don't have stories to match those you fellows have been sharing.

In a very poor attempt to entertain, I can tell you about my first white-water rafting trip. I was 14, and had sent away for an Army surplus two man rubber raft, as I had read in the great outdoor magazines how exciting it was to go white water rafting and wanted to do it. The nearest such water was only a few miles from my home, and as far as I knew no one had ever run that creek since Colonial days. There it is called a 'crick' but a waterway of this particular size in a western state would be considered a good sized river, as with many terms in northern Appalachia things sound a bit different, like a small valley is not a "holler" it is a "hollow", mountain lions are "painters" etc. So with my new rubber raft, I got my father to drop me off about twelve miles up the creek; I had a plan that I would raft until I got to a particular fishing hole near my home, pull out there, deflate the boat and hike home.

I put into the water and hollered to my father that I was fine, no leaks in the raft, thanks & see you later. The current was pretty good and I didn't feel a need to paddle for a little ways, but it was a bit of a shock to discover that with only one paddle, the rubber raft would not move at all, only spin in the water by any paddling effort. That was a bit disconcerting to me, as I knew from reading those exciting tales in Outdoor Life and Sports Afield that you must be able to move down the stream faster than the current in order to have any control at all. But I was not in serious trouble yet, and thought well I will just ride on down. Figuring out how to get out of the main current, which was fairly high as it was mid-March and rushing/muddy was a problem I had not yet done.

About two miles down the creek, as it swung ever further in the wide swing before it would eventually get to the next point near a road (that fishing hole mentioned earlier, some ten miles still down further) the water was pretty rough. I got a good cold soaking getting through the rapids and came to a long straight stretch without many large boulders but at the end of it, instead of a nice set of white water, I could see a massive log jam that completely blocked the creek with a very deadly looking whirlpool under it. I could see small branches ahead of me, getting pulled down under that log jam and out of sight. Ominously, I could see a HALF of a canoe sticking in the middle of the logs. I knew that I was in serious trouble now, and for all my frantic paddling could not make that rubber boat move other than in a circle. About six feet before getting sucked under that log jam, a tiny twig of a branch hung out over the creek, and I was just desperate enough to make a grab and catch it. It was so small (less than my pinky) that it would not hold me and the boat against that current, and I refused to let that boat go and be lost, <over a dozen muskrats had given their very lives for me to own that watercraft> so I hooked my feet under the rubber/canvas strap for a seat, and with the suction from that whirlpool pulling so hard you would not believe it, I pulled on that little branch and worked my way hand-over-hand, the branch cracking and snapping each second as if about to give way, until I got all the way to shore, boat and all.

I now decided that perhaps I had missed a step or three in my preparations for going white water rafting (a class might have helped a bit, if there were such classes in my area, and of course they didn't have such things then) and it might be wiser to just quit and go home. After deflating the raft I rolled it up and slung it over my shoulder, thinking I could just hike up to the nearest road and then hitch a ride home. That course of action did in fact work, but it turned out to be a bit over three miles out to the nearest road, and as my "luck" would have it, I managed to hike most of the rest of the way down the road before a car finally did pass by that I could get a ride from. I was one tired puppy, but far wiser for the next attempt at white water rafting.

Sorry for having fallen short in the story department, but not all of us have had such exciting adventures as some of you fellows have had. Oh and for the record, wearing a cape does NOT do the trick for jumping off of tall buildings, ask me how I found out. LOVE the stories, please keep 'em coming! Sock coffee anyone?

Oroblanco

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

ORO----\_____/ where is my coffee? You were saved by a higher authority to outwit Mexican narcos. Actually they are of a very minor problem in the sierras here. You will enjoy the sierras and sexy mules.

As for that log trap, i wonder just how many in here realize just 'how deadly' that can be? You have earned your rite of passage also, Bien venido.

More, more.

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

[Oroblanco]

Muchas gracias mi compadre, I look forward to it;

As for how dangerous those log jams can be, I forgot to add a couple of details, which I learned about after my own experience. That half-canoe had belonged to two men from a big city <if memory serves it was NYC but may have been Philadelphia> that had attempted to canoe that creek a couple of weeks earlier, and they had "disappeared" but their drowned bodies were found later far downstream; and another canoeist had drowned attempting the creek the year previous but in a different log jam further down stream. It was a pretty dangerous water, in fact my father whom was an expert swimmer drowned in the same creek just four years later and in March when the water seems to run the highest, there. Ignorance is bliss, at least they keep telling me how blissful I must be due to that truism but somehow it always seems to end up being painful experience! I know that I sure got extra nervous when my own feet got well under the first log, and that branch felt like a matchstick in my hands. Cold water too.

The sad part is that a few years later, the Corps of Engineers went up that whole creek "channelizing" it, so there are today no exciting rapids for a kid to shoot, no deep holes full of fat brook trout, instead it has slowed and has a population of carp and suckers. That channelizing was to "improve" the creek, of course.

Keep 'em coming amigos, and BTW someone put another log on the fire!

OOPs - here is your cup of Joe, Jose!
Oroblanco

 

[mrs.oroblanco]

Hey, Jose,

Don't be trying to lure Roy with lovely mules - he is, and always has been - an ass-man!!!


Beth