Expedition Sewerest

What does a Dad do when Mom is sick?

Well, I sell the kids on a decent-sized walk to the golden streets of QuikTrip, by regaling them with the legends of an entire wall lined with Freezoni flavors (those with a keen eye will recognize these as having the basic ingredients of a Slurpee - namely (1) colored stuff, (2) colored sugar, and (3) frozen sugar).

We make it to our destination after no fewer than 10 inquiries as to the relationship between our current position and that of Slurpee Heaven, better known as "Are we there yet?". Elena opts for Blue Raspberry. I went for the Orange Creamsicle. But we meet near catastrophe when it is discovered that Donovan's favorite Strawberry Banana is out! White Cherry saves the day and, along with a couple bags of chips, we are off again.

While crossing the bridge to return to Archgate Park on our way home, the kids point out a "cave" that they want to check out.



Sure, let's take a closer look inside. It can't hurt.



Oh, snap! Looks like we may need to move "the talk" up on the schedule a bit.

Elena points out that "there's a woman with a penis over there". Further investigation by Donovan finds these hieroglyphics...



..and he immediately fingers "Nick" as the culprit behind this noxious graffiti.

Elena determines that this Nick character "is mean to women and dogs". Dogs? Ah, yes, the one down on all fours - Certainly a mistreated dog! I wasn't going to try and correct any of these conclusions, as it seemed like a fine explanation to me. Donovan added that "teenagers are jerks!".

So we hit the trail and are off to check back on Mom and let her know that Dad didn't lose either of them. The kids really want to explore the tunnel and immediately start compiling a list of supplies needed for such a spelunking adventure.

Once we are home, Mom is still down for the count and doped up enough on meds that she doesn't object when we tell her that we are going to explore a sewer pipe.

I retrieve the backpack and Donovan loads up the supplies: Maglite, various toys, and two spinny light-up things from Disney World.

Soon we are back at the entrance, dressed in some older clothes to head off any Wrath of Mom which may occur later.



Time for an equipment check. The Maglite is spotty, but the Disney spinning toys are in tip-top condition.



So we light up, and I lead the way.



We passed a point where another pipe emptied into the main one. There was a cluster of maybe 50-100 Daddy Longlegs hanging out together. That was enough for Donovan and he headed back out. Elena wanted to keep going, so we continued on past another pipe and another cluster of DLs. And up in one of the joints was one of the (if not THE) largest roaches I have ever seen. We looked back and saw that the opening (and Donovan) was well out of sign since the pipe had been turning. We turned back and counted the pipe sections to come up with about 150 feet that we had gone into the pipe.



Elena wanted to go back in (always much braver than her older brother), but Dad's back couldn't take much more crouching.