"Temple Of The Drowned Cat" Drain

The storm sewer drain that the Action Squad has dubbed the "Temple of the Drowned Cat" drain is pretty cool too, but we had some weird adventures even before we got in there. The only parking spot near the drain is about a fifteen minute walk away from the entrance, and it happens to be the home of some pretty shady characters at night. As we pulled into the parking lot, another car pulled in behind us, parked, and the driver proceeded to sit in his car with his lights off. SKETCHY, right? But what can you do. As we were walking towards the drain on the bike/walking path that follows the road, we heard some sirens coming towards us, which, since we weren't near.. y'know, fuckin anything, was slightly unsettling. When it got close enough, we realised that the siren was just a fire truck, but as it passed us, it slowed down and then stopped, shined it's light on us (to which we gave it a 'wtf, mate?' look) and then continued. A couple of minutes later, an ambulance drove down the same way as the fire truck and pulled over when it saw us. The guy inside leaned his head out the window and asks us, get this, asks us "You guys seen a fire down here?" More befuddlement all around, but to top it all off, when the ambulance pulled away, it decided it couldn't be bothered to get back on the road and just drove down the bike path!! It was awesome. We kept walking and pretty soon the fire truck and ambulance drove past us again. (The ambulance guy waved at us. It was cool.) It must have been a prank call, but it was pretty fuckin weird.

We eventually got down near the drain and sat on a log on the bank of the river while we waited for some boats to pass so we could climb in. While we were waiting, a little rafty boaty type thing with a blinking blue light on top putted past us. It was a frickin police boat! Luckily, they didn't stop, and we had some good answers planned out even if they did. After about five minutes, they came back and, holy shit, docked their boat at the dock RIGHT NEXT TO THE DRAIN! It was crazy. Goxkok snuck up to check if the coast was clear, and when it was, we all ran up and into the drain, right under the coppers' noses. It was rock'n'roll as shit.


Inside, the sewer was refreshingly large, and conveniently didn't smell like total fucking ass (like the helix drain did.) You might even call it nice. We walked a super long way (passing an open manhole cover that we're pretty sure lead to the heavily populated area they have right near the drain. It was a little scary, because it wasn't that late at night, and I think there was some shindig or something going on there)

We noticed a second temple type thing on a small offshoot from the main drain. It's a lot smaller, but it has some ladder action too. We didn't go up, though, since the ladders were covered in garbage and leaves from the last time it rained (or the last few times).

We eventually found the "temple." It's this big um.. catch basin? I think is the term. I didn't really pay attention to how it worked, but the gist of it is that water falls a really long way and it's this big weird metal thing. There's some ladders on the sides so you can climb up and get on top of it, but it constantly dumps water on you. Luckily, Gox thought it would be funny to bring an umbrella in his bag and take a picture of us with it underground. It worked pretty well, but it wasn't that big, so Jacques said fuck it and braved it alone.

Needless to say, we got ridiculously soaked by the water that seemed to fall for hundreds and hundreds of feet into this strange cistern thing

Here is a shot of the huge cistern looking down from the ladder. The water droplets catch the light from the flash in a weird way, so its sort of hard to make out.


From on top of the temple, you can climb up even more ladders (there had to be a couple hundred feet of ladder) and eventually you get to a manhole cover. I'm not really sure where exactly that manhole cover is, but it's somewhere near-ish my house, and Gox looked out (bad idea) and said he saw some shoes thrown over a telephone wire, so I'm thinkin I'm just gonna have to search around for an easier way in there. It might come in handy for avoiding cops... or those creepers down by the river.


Here, we turned back after a farwell look at the Temple and started our long trek back to the outfall to re-sneak around the cop boats


That was enough exploring for one day, so, feelin' rock and roll, we drove to Mac and Don's for some shitty delicious cheap food, and called it a night.

-Franklin Delano Nothing OUT!
(a)//(e)