OK...so maybe not the world so much as a small part of our part of it.
John has gotten it in his head that he wants to go find either the mines or the caves that are located somewhere either in or around Akron Falls, NY.
This is John....
I haven't the foggiest what it is that he is looking at, but it's irrelevant.
John's my buddy. We've been friends for...ohhh...hmmm...let me count back...17 years now? Yeah, something right around there. We met one afternoon as my (at the time) girlfriend and I were coming back from a paddle in our fiberglass canoe down Ellicott Creek. And yes, the composition of said canoe is relevant. Incidentally, one of my students--a senior--once asked me what a "can-oh-ee" was. Until I walked over to his computer, I had no idea what word he was saying and, upon discovering what the hell he was talking about, contemplated, for only the 3,000th (or so) time my career choice.
ANYWAY!
As the ex and I were cruising into our pull out spot, we discovered that there were two men fishing...on our spot...in our way. Much to our delight, they immediately, and chivalrously I might add, pulled their lines from the water and stood up to help us bring the canoe ashore.
Unfortunately, our delight was short lived as John and his friend Gordy rather dragged the canoe from the water over every rock and branch that, I think, had ever falling into the creek. Thus, my reasoning behind including the composition of the canoe in the retelling of this little vignette. Needless to say, the nearly flawless canoe was decidedly less so once it had made it to shore.
Nonetheless, I had a friend for life.
I think everyone has a John in their lives. That one friend who won't walk away from you (no matter how hard you try some days), who will participate in any hare-brained plan you come up with and who will most likely not be bailing you out of jail, as he will be sharing the cell with you. He may be a tad boorish from time to time, perhaps a bit over bearing, perhaps downright flee-worthy, but he's genuinely got a good soul and you know that he is true blue.
Historically, my girlfriends (he has been through 5 of them with me) have not much cared for John. His boorishness and excitability can be a little off putting for someone who hasn't learned how to compartmentalize. And, admittedly, sometimes he just wears me right the hell out, but a girlfriend will drop many points in my estimation for saying a negative word about him.
Well, when this latest relationship hit the ocean floor, John realized that he had his play buddy back again and we started to do things. Somebody might want to just kill me now before my mother spends the rest of her days agonizing over whether or not they will ever recover my body. John takes some foolish chances from time to time and I am always ever so happy to traipse merrily along beside him. He's going to get me killed because neither one of us has any sense.
The first thing that John decided that we were going to take the motorcycles out for a ride one Sunday morning. He asked me if I'd ever been to Akron Falls, which I had. He said that he'd been doing some poking around online and wanted to see if he (read we) could find the abandoned mines that he'd read about in a couple of blogs. Never one to turn down any of John's stupid ideas, I said that I was in.
We met at his house and from there, drove the 20 miles to Akron Falls County Park in Akron, NY.
Having only a vague idea of where we were going, we parked the bikes at a nearby do-it-your-damn-self car wash and walked into the park. Being John, he took no real notice of the fact that we were crashing through the pavilion of some family's day at the park. We eventually excused ourselves and continued onward. Until we reached a trail...and this fence:
Since I was forced (by my incessant need to travel as unencumbered as possible) to use my camera phone to take all of this trip's (and next one's too, if you must know!) pics. For those of you who can't read what the signs say, how about this:
I'm sure I don't need to tell you that we ignored both of them.
But, if you will, allow me to slip in an aside here. I was raised a good Italian Catholic in a long line of good Italian Catholics...Sicilians, if you want to be a stickler. Even though I haven't stepped foot in a church (other than when I was curiously poking around or attending a concert in a reused space) in more than 20 years, my heart still does a little clutch every single time I break a rule. Stupid Catholic Guilt! Moving right along...
John and I jumped over one guardrail, slipped under another and went crashing through the brush until we discovered a well worn walk down to the water:
Don't worry right now about how I got that picture, I'll get to it next time, and don't worry, at all, about who those people are; I have no idea.
Once we made it down to the water's edge without killing ourselves or breaking anything, We were about to take in our surroundings:
Being the people that we are, we (of course) felt it was necessary to see just how close we could get. Incidentally, I believe this the the Lower Falls. Don't quote me on that, as we never have a map or anything more than a vague, general idea of where we are going.
So...closer, we went:
And closer still while John stopped to contemplate god knows what:
The closer we got, the more slick the rocks got:
Until we couldn't go much further without taking a dip:
Which is what I decided to do so that I could get the next two shots:
And:
Eventually, John and I made our way back to the top, taking (of course) a much more treacherous route than we had down...just because...well...why not?
Unfortunately, I couldn't take pictures, as I was too busy using both hands to stop a bone breaking fall back down to the bottom of the ravine. We made it back to the top uneventfully, climbed on the motorcycles and headed for home.
Next Time: Akron Falls Redux
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