Adventures with Tarantulas, Snakes, and Poisonous Tree Frogs...

ProfessorChaos

New member
When I first turned 13 years old, my mother and I went on a hiking trip over to the Quabbin Resevoir. There, we explored along the water's edge until we came to an interesting place where once every several years the resevoir's water would recede just enough that a landbridge of sorts would allow one to walk out unto what we thought was an island in the middle of the resevoir.

Being adventurous, we clambered across the rocky landbridge, little more than large stones in a dotted line across the water's surface. And, we made it unto the "island" at long last. It had been an ambition of ours for quite a few years, but that year we accomplished it. There, we started exploring the place and to our horror discovered it was not an island but a piece of land like a small peninsula that jutted out from the other side of the resevoir. We spent hours lost there, and took a break for lunch upon some rocks by the water. I ate quickly, and while my mother finished her food I climbed on some rocks to survey the area and try to get our bearings. Luckily, I knew how to get us back, by following the water's edge until we found the landbridge once again. Not so luckily, I noticed that all around where my mother was sitting were hundreds of baby spiders. Black, hairy, baby spiders! She took it well, since she was only really afraid of snakes, and we made our way back to the stones that led over the water to more familiar places that we typically liked.

One such place was a long trail called Hank's Place, which was lined with the ruins of the towns that they emptied to create the resevoir. The old stone foundations of forgotten houses lined the trail, and we enjoyed exploring the ruins, searching for whatever we could find. Once, I found a rare piece of Marshland Quartz in a swamp amidst that area. So, we decided to brave the woods beyond the ruins, which we never entered before. There, we thought we spied a grassy field and we ran out unto it only to find ourselves waist deep in a what turned out to be a bog. In the bog, a huge water snake was swimming past our legs, and my mother screamed. Eventually, we got out of the bog and decided to take a break from our expedition and return home to clean up and fetch the rest of the family. We had lost hours in the bog, but we were still excited to return to Quabbin for some more crazy adventures...

This time, we went back to the resevoir's waterline where we discovered the old rusted ruins of an armory. Inside, it was dark and empty. Accompanying me on this second journey was my cousin Chris, my mother, and both of my grandparents. All in all, a hearty crew! We moved on from the ruined armory and on our way to some nearby woods, we ventured too close to some sand near the water's edge and realized to our horror that the sand was sinking. I never realized that quicksand existed in places like Massachusetts, but it not only does, it is deadly! Before we had taken two steps, we were up to our waists in it. Chris, being short at the time, was up to his neck and screaming for us to save him. The sand had my mothers arms, and the rest of us were sinking as fast as Chris was. Soon, another family came by and laughed at us, not taking seriously our situation. Then, somehow, Chris grabbed unto a big log and pulled himself out. He helped my grandfather, who cowardly went up for higher ground while Chris had to help my mother out of the sand. In the meantime, my grandmother found her own way out and I managed to find another log to save my own life. Soon, we all met at the top of a hill and we had some nasty words for that other family who'd laughed at our struggles.

Towards the end of the day, Chris and I discovered some new ruins not far from the resevoir's spillway. There, amidst a thick canopy of vines, we got into an old ruined house's foundation, where some old pottery sat upon one of the many stone walls. We divided up the pottery between us and called it a day. The next day, we planned to take a trip to Arcadia Wildlife Sanctuary in Easthampton. But, since night was coming, we rode home for some sleep.

That night, my mother threw her jacket unto the bird cage so our parakeet would shut up and go to sleep himself. However, at around midnight we woke up from the bird screeching loudly as if in pain. I threw off the jacket cover, and saw a huge, black, hairy tarantula with it's fangs bared trying to kill the bird. I screamed, and saw a whole bunch of those ugly little baby spiders from the resevoir swarming all over the place. I threw off my shirt and killed them as best as I could with it while my grandmother called a friend of the family over to deal with the tarantula. He grabbed a barbecue fork and then stabbed the large spider with it. By that point, we had tried regular forks, presticide, and even smashing it with a book. Somehow, it was still alive! But, thinking quickly, our friend took the impaled creature outside and threw it over the backyard fence, barbecue fork still stuck in it's writhing body. My mother checked her jacket pockets and found a piece of driftwood she had collected at Quabbin earlier that day. Inside it was the spider's nest. So, we destroyed it and threw it over the fence to have done with the monster. I never knew tarantulas existed in New England, but I leanded a lot that day!

The next morning, my grandmother got a plant from her next-door neighbor. The plant came from Africa, and hidden in the plant's soil we found a white frog with curious spots on it's back. We decided to take it to Arcadia, since we were going there anyway, to see if the park people knew what kind of frog it was. It turned out to be a rare, poisonous African tree frog with the kind of venom on it's skin that could kill a tarantula or paralyze a person by touch. Thankfully, none of us had touched it! The park people were careless with it, however, and the frog got away. It hopped into a nearby swamp and they couldn't find it. To this day, they have a small population of these frogs there because of their own incompetance. So, we thought that nothting at all stranger could occur after that. We were wrong! While hiking in Arcadia, Chris and I happened about what we thought was a rotted tree. I decided to show off my martial arts prowess and fell the tree with one kick. I succeeded and the tree broke in half, falling over quite dead. Chris joined in at that point and we kicked the tree to pieces. Then, we noticed a sign on the tree's trunk that we hadn't seen before. It said, and I quote from full memory: "Dogwood Tree from the Holy Land. Estimated Value: $80 Million U.S. Dollars." Needless to say, Chris and I screamed for my mother, who said: "What... did you two do!" And hurried us towards a nearby lookout tower, where we hid while the park people went by. After they had gone past, and begun to clean up the tree, which they determined "Must have gotten hit by lightning during that storm the other night." we took some back trails until we were well out of the park. Then, we went home. My mother said: "I am never taking you two to Arcadia again." We eventually did go back, but refrained from any Kung Fu.

To end the day on a pleasant note, we thought we would go to a park that we found on the way home. Unfortunately the "park" turned out to be creepy beyond words. There was this steep vertical cutting where all these big, old, dark oak trees clustered all the way down. Across from this piece of land was a vast swamp of twisted trees, and the only path ran across the cutting to what we thought was a monument. We went to see what it was, and that was when we noticed it was next to a crypt set into the vertical cutting. The crypt was sealed only with an iron grating, and you could see the stone coffin inside of it. My mother read the plaque on the nearby monument and said to us: "Guys, get back to the car as fast as you can! This isn't a park, it's somebody's private burial grounds. Somebody is really buried here, in that coffin!" Sure enough... on our way back, we spied a big old house on a rocky crag jutting out from the vertical cutting, overlooking the swamp. All in all, a very gloomy-looking place. That was the end of our adventures for those two days, and it was an ending to a series of adventures I would never forget. :D
 
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