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To: casinomom who wrote (174989)	6/5/2008 12:44:24 PM
From: bumblin bob	Respond to of 208838

Sorry to have disturbed the class. I think I'm too old to refer to her as my girlfriend and "my old lady" doesn't sound good at any age IMO, so Not-Wife is what I use. As far as the albino crickets....I had a misadventure with a less than competent friend one time that involved a cave at a remote location (which was almost two miles long from the entrance to the exit...above ground), two flashlights between five people and a really bad idea. If I have time after work tonight I'll tell the story, but believe me, the albino crickets are real and surprisingly, they didn't seem that odd when your attention is focused on how to kill your friend without getting caught. He lived...but I'll save the rest for later. Gotta go! Have a great day. Nice trade earlier BTW. Congrats!

To: casinomom who wrote (174989)	6/8/2008 2:42:36 PM
From: bumblin bob	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 208838

OT: Here's your Ramblin' Bob story.... About eighteen years ago, back when I was young and tan and full of myself (like only young people can be tan and full of themselves), I had a (water) skiing buddy named Greg. (He was twice as tan and full of himself.) He would call me up each weekend and talk me into going water skiing, or on a road trip, or some other adventure that usually involved alcohol and the company of a nice female or two. So when he called and said that he had the use of a cabin on one of the rivers here (for the Fourth of July weekend) I loaded up on beer and headed that way. The cabin had probably been nice when it was built in the 1930's, but had been left to rot by the builders son after his death in the mid 1970's. It was in the middle of Nowhere. 'Remote' is overused these days, but it was.....remote. The toilet worked and the brick grill still stood, so we overlooked the buckled floor and the large limb laying on top of the roof. We were going to be outside most of the weekend. Who cared! I had gotten there early enough where we were able to head over to Fall Creek Falls with his female guest and her two kids. (If you are ever in TN, Fall Creek Falls is a must go place for the outdoor types.) I had never been there and was awestruck by it's waterfalls and scenery. The trip was off to a good start. Day two we decided to go water skiing on the river. His female friend decided to stay at the cabin with her kids, which (in hindsight) showed that she had good judgement. We made a couple trips up and down the river, one driving while the other got drug past logs and bottles and other hazards that the recent rain had dislodged. He was driving when our first tank of gas gave out.....which was about a mile downriver from our cove. No big deal....change out the tank and back to the fun.....except (according to him) he had loaned his younger brother the boat the weekend before and the second tank had too much oil mixed with it and fouled the spark plug. He had no tools in the boat to correct the situation. We're now about two miles downstream from our cove. We tried the trolling motor (along with our paddle....yes, just one) but the current is too strong, so we tie off at the bank and decide to wait for someone to come along. The river cuts through granite and limestone, so the "bank" was actually a small tree growing on a small patch of dirt at the bottom of a large rock wall.....in the full sun. When help arrived (three hours later) we were no longer tan we were burnt....crispy....completely. They were nice enough not to laugh or mention it as they towed us back. Since sunlight hurt on day three, Greg had another great idea. There was a cave just up the road, that came out at our cove, just below the cabin. He said that he had been through it a few times and he made it sound so good that the woman's son and daughter REALLY wanted to go.....so we went. We drove up the dirt road and parked one of our cars near the fence of a neglected field, then walked to the middle of the field. We had two flashlights. The openning to the cave was barely big enough for us to get through, but once in it, the roof was about twenty feet high and it was probably sixty feet across. Pretty cool, but we were all ready to leave after a few minutes, until Greg pointed to a hole in the floor at the back of the cave. That's when we remembered that it came out by our cabin. The hole was slick with mud on all sides and dropped for about twenty feet. Greg slid down before we thought about it too much. The rest of us followed. We were in a area where you could walk normally, but it was only about 3' wide. Greg is up front with a flashlight and I'm bringing up the rear. Not bad so far...so long as you don't think about all of the earth above you. This goes on for about a mile with the occassional room off of the path to keep it interesting, until it ends at two bad choices. There is another hole down that is about two feet across, but it bends so that you can't see where it goes or there is a hole three feet off the ground that continues to go straight. It too is about two feet wide. We can't turn around because we can't go back up the mud tunnel at the entrance, so we follow Greg into the hole in the wall.....head first. This is about two hundred yards (or at least it seems like it) of claustrophobic hell. Crawling on your stomach, scraping against sharp rocks, thinking about all of that earth above you....and realizing that no one knows you are down here. The nine year old boy starts to make threats on Greg's life...we join him. This section ends at another mud slide down....face first......that ends with a four foot drop into a small pool of VERY cold water. The water isn't deep enough to break your fall....just feed your anger. It's part of a stream. We are able to crawl on our hands and knees now and there is fresh air coming from somewhere. We get out of the water to rest and that's when we notice that we have company. Lots of company. All over the walls there are hundreds and hundreds of large albino crickets. They decide to freak out about the same time as the eight year old girl does. They are jumping everywhere, but especially on the girl, or so it seems by her screams. She's back in the water, headed downstream. The rest of us follow. The exit was much closer than we thought and it did come out just below the cabin. Greg's life would be spared and the rest of the day was uneventful. I spent a lot less time with Greg after that trip.....but that's where I met the Not-Wife. Funny how things work out like that. Her daughter still doesn't like crickets.