So we are sitting around in their backyard a couple of weeks ago and he's looking at the trees in their back yard overlooking their pool. Now, imagine this...the in-ground pool is surrounded on two sides by a three-foot rock wall. Over that wall on one end is a wooden bridge. Beyond the bridge is a koi pond with a three-level waterfall about 12-feet high cascading into the pond. And a thick layer of trees envelops the whole thing. It's like swimming in a rain forest.
So my brother-in-law takes this all in as if for the first time and sees it. A rope swing from the bridge by the koi pond into the pool. And he's off to the garage where he just happens to have some industrial strength rope lying around. The kind tug boats use to pull freighters and ocean liners. After a series of complicated maneuvers using lighter rope and some weights, he gets a rope swing rigged up. From at least 30 feet up in the trees!
It took him a couple of weeks of tinkering to perfect it all, but he's finally got it down. Now weekends at their house are spent soaring through the air before splashing down in cool water. It...is...heaven!
And one of my nieces, the littlest peanut of them all, was brave enough and light enough and athletic enough to pull off the scary back-flip that seems to elude the rest of us. She went swinging through the air and flipped over about 8 feet over the water while screaming with joy. Accomplishing what her older male cousins were too afraid to even try. She rocks so much! As of right now, only she and my brother-in-law have pulled it off. But there are a still a few precious weeks left in the summer.
Me? I was happy just perfecting my cannonball.
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11 comments:
I'd be killed. I drink too much to go into the water and do anything other than stand there. I'll watch. From here in Chicago. But thanks.
RW - Watching was a whole heap of fun too. Watching with a bloody mary in my hand was even better.
what if there was a shark?
Slyde - somewhere along the line, I've grown past the fear of a shark lurking in a pool. Took a while, but I got past it.
That sounds like heaven! And leave it to the smallest girl to do it, too - yes!
If he didn't use ample helpings of duct tape and chewing gum, I'd be hard-pressed to call him MacGyver.
Sybil - She was soooo excited to be the first!
Heff - There was duct tape, but no bubble gum.
I'd be worried about missing the pool or hitting the wall.
Avitable - that's what all the tweaking was about. The way it is set up now, the only way you could get hurt is if you didn't let go and you came crashing back into the bridge. Other than that, no way to miss the pool or hit the wall on the side.
Goodness I remember using one of those pirate swing thingies when I was younger over a river. So much fun.
Kevin - if I didn't have that fear of swimming in a body of water with fishes, I'd be all into a rope swing into a river. I'll take the pool.
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