Photo Friday: Go Ape

Alex and I took a travel writing day trip yesterday, to visit Go Ape in St. Louis…and although I only took pictures with Christian’s discarded iPhone (Alex simply would not believe me that it has no data service and never will) instead of the SLR, I think they’re good enough to share.

Ewok Village — Driving through Creve Coeur Park in Maryland Heights and–look! An Ewok village!

Deer and Dogwood — We were quite early, so we took a walk around the park and found a very un-skittish deer posing for a picture near a dogwood.

Creve Coeur Park 2 — The juxtaposition of the red Japanese maple and the white some-sort-of-stinky-pear doesn’t really come out (needed the SLR!), but you can get an idea.

Extreme — This would be the “extreme” option. The one heading off to the left would be the “moderate/easy” option.

Gymnast Rings 1 — Another “extreme” option: a whole row of these gymnast footholds. I made it across without any mishaps requiring the safety cables to catch me. When I saw my shadow so clear down below me, I stopped in the middle to snap a photo. Trying to hold still on those dangling rings, I realized this activity was a lot more athletic than I’d anticipated. I could feel every muscle in my legs quivering.

Gymnast Rings — Alex on the same set of rings. Using his safety harness liberally. 🙂

Rope Pull — Rope pull. Not so hard, but definitely a lot of arm work, especially after three days in a row of Jazzercise, one of which was an all strength training class.

No Hands — Twisty ladder, and behind it, the Tarzan swing (off to the left). For that, see the video below.

We had to climb to a second platform for the last zipline, and as I stood waiting for Alex to unhook and clear the landing area at the far end, I thought, “This platform is really moving a lot.” Then I looked around and realized just how close I was to the top of the tree. 🙂

Treetop