Eco-Travel Adventure Part I

I was exhausted after the marathon effort to build Chippy Stadium and the cleanup after the Wood Bowl game. It took me two days to cleanup 50 pounds of sunflower seed shells. I need a vacation! I dropped by my travel agent Merry and he hooked me up with an eco-adventure trip. He says it is full of outdoor challenges which will put fear into the hardiest critter. (I gave him my best scared to death impression …  but, I know it was just part of the sales pitch.)

I hopped a plane to “Doomsday Island” in the Caribbean. This travel agency over does it a bit with the scary terminology. We approached the Island and I was expecting to see luxury resorts on the beach but I saw no sign of modern civilization what-so-ever. The plane started to descend and it looked like we were going to crash land until at the last second a narrow airstrip in the middle of the jungle appeared. The landing was a bit bumpy. Okay, I think the “wild jungle” airport adds to the ambience of the trip. I grabbed my four suitcases and asked about getting a cab to the hotel. The staff laughed and pointed to a trail through the jungle. My suitcases were covered in mud by the time I reached our accommodations. I was ready for a hot bath and some air conditioning. I asked for my burrow keys and was told I had hammock #10. Why do these resorts have to come up with touristy names for everything. Oh, I take that back, it is an open-air hammock. There is no running water or air conditioning. Pretty primitive. They do offer free bug spray.

Wake up call was 5 am in the morning. More correctly it was more of a dump you out of your hammock than a “call.” A quick breakfast of wildlife editable seeds and off to the first adventure. It is a zip line through the jungle.

You have to climb up the tree and then zip line down in the basket.

They did a safety check run – It didn’t look very safe to me!

I  got selected as the first one to try it. Even with a telephoto lens, you can barely make me out climbing this huge tree.

I watched as my life flashed by me!

The zip line operator (who was busy checking his facebook status on his phone), looked up and was horrified to discover he had lost Chippy. “This is the second one this month.”

Where did Chippy go? “I just lost the world famous blogger, I going to get fired for sure this time.”

“Anyone in here?”

The speed of the zip line had flattened me to the bottom of the basket. I must have died because, the next thing I know some chipmunk angel is hovering above me. Wait a second, that is the dumb kid they hired to run this diabolical contraption. I started rambling on, “Am I still alive? Did I make it? Are the safety lines secure? You wouldn’t have a cold beer would you?”