The Water Tower

[00:00:01] Hi, this is. I'm back for episode two. [00:00:05] So I think, yeah, today we're just gonna go over for episode two, just the story. I mentioned that we probably do some stories in the last episode. Our first one, so. Or my first one. [00:00:18] So. [00:00:19] Yeah. Guess we'll just get started. [00:00:21] So this is a story that happened to me over this summer. I mean, you could kind of just shorten it up simply. But I'm just gonna go over the whole thing with you and just talk it through. [00:00:33] So over the summer, I got a good buddy. I don't know how name dropping necessarily works, but I won't say it. If he watches this, he'll know. [00:00:42] So I got this good buddy and we hang out a lot. I've known him for, like, a long, long time, and I go over to his house a lot. That's where we spend a lot of our time. I mean, I hang out with him outside of his house, but go over there a lot. [00:00:56] So one of the times went over to his house and he has these E bikes, which I don't think I really need to explain. The E bike, you can go pretty fast on them. They're pretty fun. Go like, what, 25 miles an hour on them, just without pedaling, just hitting the thing, the throttle, the electric throttle. [00:01:14] So it's more. More nighttime at this point. It's getting, like, closer to dark. [00:01:21] So you take the E bikes. A lot of fun. We've ridden on them before. Whatever. Just go find something to do. I don't know. There's not all that much to do. So we just go ride around, maybe ride more down this hill downtown, go figure something out. [00:01:35] So we're on the E bikes, we're riding down and just trying to find something new. It's a lot of fun. We're going fast down. He has, like, a whole hill that he goes down to his, like, off his little property area that he has. [00:01:48] So we're riding down and we're just again, trying to go find something to do. [00:01:55] So we go all the way down and we passed this water tower. [00:01:59] And he. I don't know. I don't think we said anything yet, but we just kind of, I don't know, just kept on going. So we passed this water tower. We go across the bridge across his water tower. Then we just keep on going downtown. [00:02:11] And I think we were trying to see what the best thing we could find around. We were like, no, let's do something stupid. [00:02:19] So I think his initial idea, he was like, yo, we should just go climb A building. It's like, okay, what. What building are we going to climb? What is what? [00:02:30] So we go kind of looking around down. Down in the E box, just looking. And I don't know. That didn't go too well. So you're thinking. And I don't actually remember who said something, but that water tower they passed earlier, we were like, yo, we should try to climb it. But we. We wanted to check something. There was a bigger water tower down more. So we just kept biking or, like, biking down, down this path to try to get to this bigger water tower and see what was available over there. So we just kept going down more fun bumps, whatever. So we make it down to this other water tower, and we look at it. It's pretty tall. Or like, yeah, no, that's not happening. We had to climb a fence. We were going to have to climb a fence if we wanted to get even close to that. And it looked pretty protected, and it looked like there were cameras and whatever else up there. So we're like, yeah, no, we're not. We're not doing that. That's stupid. We're gonna get caught really easy. And that would not be good for either of us. [00:03:23] So we start heading back on the E bikes, just cruising. We're like, okay, let's go. Look, the other water tower, the one we initially pass. [00:03:30] Just see if it's even doable, if it's even, I don't know, show. It's not even that bad. So you make it back to this other water tower, and we got to figure out how to climb it, if we're even going to have a chance of climbing it. So we're looking at it, and, you know, it's looking pretty tall. I don't know how tall this water tower actually is. I guess 100ft, like the top, maybe a little less late, maybe a little bit more. But right around that 100ft mark, so we start. [00:03:54] We just not start climbing yet. We'll get there, but we're just looking at it and trying to figure out how, like, it's even possible. [00:04:01] So on this water tower, it's. [00:04:04] They got security almost making sure there's no stupid kids or people going to try to climb this thing. So they got, like, some protection. [00:04:12] Some like, it's like a barrier. So there's this ladder that goes up. You know, on the side, there's four corners of the water tower that each. Look, they kind of have a ladder, but one the far left or the. The closest corner to the main road has a ladder. Just going up. So we thought it was going up, but it was more diagonal. [00:04:32] But so we start figuring out how we're going to get around this barrier that's protecting, like, the main one, because it looked like people have done this before. So they put up a whole little. I don't even know what the shape is, but it's just barrier. Make sure you're not getting up there. And then they have other stuff just kind of blocking, basically just blocking area. [00:04:51] So trying to figure out what the best solution is to get around this barrier. Because obviously we got to get around if we're going to get up. So just looking at it more, we start kind of getting on, like, the first part of the structure because, like, it's the ladder going up. There's a barrier right on the ladder, and then the ladder continues up the tower. So we have to get to the ladder. [00:05:11] So we get on the first part of the ladder before the barrier, and then we. There's a little, like, around, I don't know, it's like the electrical box or something. There's a little wire that connects them. I forget what the wire is called. There's a name or something. [00:05:25] So we're trying to figure out the best way to even get remotely close to getting to the actual ladder that could take us up the tower. [00:05:32] So we're just messing around, figuring out what's gonna even work, and we eventually figure out if we put our. What was it like, our right or left. I think you kind of do a little hop off the little ladder right before the barrier, put your left foot on the wire, and then right from the electrical box, you can then hoist yourself over the barrier, Basically doing a muscle up. [00:05:54] And that was the only doable way. [00:05:58] So I think he. My buddy, he kind of tried it first and was like, yeah, I think it's doable here. He was like, you should try. So I go, I do. I was like, okay, this is definitely doable. So I get up, I on top of the barrier. I'm now on top of the barrier. And I was like, looking up. It's not that high on the barrier. The barrier is probably like 10ft up in the air. Maybe less. Like, yeah, probably around 10ft up in the air. Seven feet. [00:06:22] And I'm looking down. And I was like, yeah, I don't think this would be that bad. So I just started climbing. [00:06:27] And I climbed a little bit so my buddy could do the same thing as me, do the muscle up over the barrier. [00:06:32] And I started climbing up, was climbing I'm probably about 20ft at this point and I'm looking down at my buddy and he's a little bit behind me and I was like, okay, well he's coming. I'm just going to keep going. So I keep climbing and climbing and climbing and it's getting scarier. I never really felt that feeling of. Because I mean it's a free climb. There's nothing. [00:06:55] If we fall at the top of this, that's it. Maybe not it. It'd probably be worse if that wasn't it. [00:07:01] Cause then whatever trauma, head and injury, that's like worst case scenario, stuck in the hospital, can't do anything for yourself. [00:07:08] And I'm feeling my heart just continue to like just beat. [00:07:13] Cause I mean it's scary. Like I'm feeling my breathing going up and I can't necessarily control it unless I'm kind of trying to. And I'm keep climbing and I'm like just don't look down. So I keep going and going and going and it feels like I'm just going straight up. It didn't feel like I was going at an angle, which I later found out looking at the tower again. So I feel like I'm just going straight up and I get to a point where there's a little crossbar over the tower, like connecting like the different points. If you know how water tower works, is like the beam, the metal beam that connects the different legs and I make it to this beam. So I'm probably what, 50ft up in the air, 60ft up in the air at this point. I don't know, I could be wrong, but probably around there. And I was thinking to myself, I was like, you know, I could try to get on that beam. That could be kind of cool. If I try to crawl off the ladder onto this beam and then just sit there. Probably be a pretty beauty, pretty view at this point. I mean it's nighttime, you know, see the lights. Just you know, try not. [00:08:15] I don't know. We're also trying to be sneaky in a way because if we get caught, I don't know, we didn't know how much time we had in case whatever the consequences of this would be police showed up or whatever. So I'm thinking about this beam and I was like, ah, it's probably not worth it. If somebody shows up, I'm gonna have to get off the thing and I'm not gonna be able to easily because I'm have to maneuver my way off the ladder. And then if I fall that's it. So I decided the risk was not gonna be worth it. And my buddy's still a little bit. He's probably 10ft below me at this point. [00:08:42] And I started climbing more and climbing. And we probably got up like the tip of the tower's probably 100ft, I'm guessing. So we were like 80ft. We were probably 20ft below, like the tip of it. [00:08:52] And I'm looking up and I was like, I'm yelling at my friend or I yell. I yelled to my friend and was like, dude, this. It goes like out so. Because that's what it looked like it. I thought we were. We both thought we were climbing straight up. So if the tower, if we're going straight up and the ladder to get up like on top. On top of the tower where you could stand up there, it was gonna. It looked like it was going out. He. So we were gonna have to free climb, basically like monkey climb up. And I was like, if I. I do not trust myself to do that. [00:09:24] So we make it up like 80ft is what I'm guessing it was at that point. [00:09:30] Cause yeah, probably. Probably around 80ft right before the ladder. Basically like 10ft below the ladder is what I'm getting. And then like the tip a hundred. So I was like, yeah, nope, we're not doing that. And my buddy, he yells up to me, he's like, yo, we should probably go back down. And I was like, okay. [00:09:46] So he pulled out his phone and he got video or whatever of us up there. And he was kind of telling me after, I'll continue the. The going down process. But he was telling me after. He was like, dude, you just kept climbing. I was, I was not like, I. He said, he told me he kept looking down and was like, no, I cannot. Like, he just kept looking down. And I was like freaking him out, I guess. And I mean, it was for me too. But I refused to look down because I knew I would probably think about it too much. [00:10:15] Just kept climbing up, just looking up and climbing, staying as close to the ladder as possible because put my body way too much, I slip, then that's it. So my friend was telling me that after. So we're coming back down and we're trying to be kind of fast about this process. I don't actually know how long we were up there for because it was probably a solid like six minutes up the water tower, I guess, maybe more. I don't know. I wasn't keeping track of time it took. This is like a 40 minute build. Up to this point of us getting the courage to go up, figuring out how to go up, and timing it so there wasn't any cars. Cause we're on the front side of the road, like, so people can see us. Like, I mean, it was night out, so that was helpful. But people could definitely see us. So we were trying to time it so if some car drove by, I know it happened like two cars drove by while we were up there. So we kind of like shuffle around the ladder as much as we could without slipping or anything close to that. I know. At least that's what. I don't know my buddy was doing. But we're coming back down and just try to make sure we're not seen or anything. We don't know if there's a camera up here and we're being timed or something and the cops are going to show up or whatever it is. So start going back down. We're shuffling back down the water tower. [00:11:21] And I don't think there was really any casualties on the way down. I know my buddy got off first and then we got down and we like freaking out because she's like, dude, we just climbed a water tower. I mean, we didn't make it to the top because from our point of view, it definitely looked like we were going to free climb, like with just our hands. You want to be able to use our feet up the ladder, like 90ft in the air. So that was not. That was not going to be doable for either of us. But we later find out now that we, like got back down to the ground. We're looking at it, and the ladder we were climbing is diagonally up, which makes sense. I don't know why you didn't think about it like that. And then that ladder, because straight up. So I would have been comfortable doing that. I just didn't realize. It looked from the angle like we were going to free climb. I was like, dude, that's ridiculous. We're not doing that. [00:12:04] So make it back down. We're all hyped. We just climbed a water tower. Like, that's. It doesn't get more crazy than this. We could have died, bro. We did it, though. We're not dead. We saw the views, we got video. It's really scary. [00:12:18] And we. We did it. And I can say I've climbed a water tower, so that's up there in my bucket list. I guess that's pretty cool. [00:12:25] And yeah, so I guess some of the aftermath of this. So I know my buddy's parents. I know, he ended up telling them, and they were like, yeah, no. What. What. What are you doing? Like, why would you. I don't know. They weren't like, too bad about it. My parents told my mom that night, and she was kind of out of it, and she didn't really seem to care that much. She was just like. I don't know, she was really tired from work or whatever, and it was like, what are you doing? I don't. I don't even know what to do with you. My dad, he was a little bit on the. On the edge. He was like, what? What are you. What? What? [00:12:59] I don't know. Just my response from everybody pretty, like, dude, you. You could have died. Like, what are you. [00:13:06] You could have died. [00:13:07] I mean, it was pretty fun in that sense. Like, knowing that was on the line almost. I know that sounds maybe a little bit terrible, but part of it's like, it was awesome. The adrenaline rush and all that. I mean, it's pretty fun in a way. But, yeah, the aftermath. I got some. [00:13:23] Got told. Some don't do that, you know, from various people. And just like my dad mostly. [00:13:30] But I think it was worth it. I gotta say that I did that, and me and my buddy had a lot of fun. That's a memory for us now that we'll have for a while to go and. [00:13:40] Yeah, I guess we just kind of finish up here with my takeaways and lessons from this water tower adventure. [00:13:47] I would just say even when you're doing risks or whatever it is, whatever your risk is, maybe it's not climbing a water tower, but whatever. I don't think taking risks is bad by any means. I wouldn't recommend putting your life on the line most of the time or always or, like, ever, actually. But I'd say just making educated risks. I think risks are good, and that's how life is. I mean, that's how you make memories by taking risks. I mean, not all of them, but, you know, that's how a lot of core members will stay with you. Like, you took a risk and it happened. It was successful, you know, but making sure they're educated to a certain extent. Like, I made a little bit of a one of. Not like, I guess, two during, like, my climb up, whether that was on the bar or on the beam, deciding not to go out into the beam, because that would really. [00:14:36] Yeah, like, all of that, going out into the beam, that could have been a lot worse. I wouldn't have time to get off if somebody came or whatever. It was just Falling honestly. So nothing really to hold on to besides my balance so. Or climbing straight, diagonally up. Monkey climbing. Like we took a saying. No, just we're not doing that. So I would just take away that risks are good. Not always putting your life on the line, but making educated risks in a sense. I don't know if climbing a water tower is necessarily educated, but even while like taking the risk of, you know you could die, just making sure that you at least comfortable. Not especially when it's on the line doing something you're not necessarily comfortable with. Because I was feeling confident like climb plenty of things. You just higher up in the air, just gotta keep calm. Cuz if you start stressing then then you can make more mistakes or error and slip or whatever it is. Just keeping cool, keeping calm even as you're height in the air to climbing. [00:15:37] It's pretty sweet breeze though. Really pretty actually. Obviously I've been up higher on hikes or whatever and seen maybe a little bit prettier but especially being all you nobody. [00:15:48] Yeah, just all you free climb. But just with your risks making sure they're educated to a certain extent and understanding what can be on the line and just, I don't know, being careful even when you're doing something uncareful. So. Yeah, so that's for the second episode here. Story time with Jaden. [00:16:16] Don't know. Yeah, well, thanks for listening. Story time. [00:16:20] Yeah, go climb a water tower. Maybe that's not climbing a water tower, but go climb a water tower. [00:16:26] All right, bye bye.