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It was suggested after breakfast that we go for a stroll on Mt. Tabor. After yesterdays five hour drive, the idea of walking sounded wonderful.
Exploring Mt. Tabor with Aimee was fun. On our way back to the car we walked along the bank of reservoir number five. The pink blossoms on the tress next to the path begged to have their picture taken. Ahead was a man staring intently at some papers in his hand. He looked at us and motioned us to come over to him.
It became quickly apparent that the man was mute. He pointed at the papers in his hands. The papers were photocopies of old black and white photos. He then pointed at the reservoir in front of us. "Ahh they are photos of the reservoir being constructed!" I said, and he nodded in agreement. Looking closely at the photo I could see the year 1910 printed on the bottom. He fumbled a bit with the other photos in an attempt to show us more. The first paper fell out of his grasp and slowly glided down to the ground. I reached down to pick it up but stepped back in amazement as the ground and the grass that lay beneath it slowly started to turn grey. This grey began to spread faster across the large lawn, and soon the entire park was no longer in colour but various shades of gray. The mute man transformed into a young man, in a somewhat ratty grey suit. His faced was hidden under a velvet blanket that was attached to an old pin hole camera.
Reservoir number five that we were just looking at was all but gone. It was now a large dirt pit, with all sorts of construction materials and a vintage excavator on railway tracks. On the other side of the pit we spotted a large table where all the men were eating their lunch.
I finally looked at Aimee. "I guess it was a good idea to come here!" she said with a grin on her face, that screamed "lets adventure!". "Do you want to check out that big machine?" Aimee asked. "Do I!!" I said as I started down the dirt embankment. It didn't take long till we stood by this large earth eating machine. The machine looked like a monster, with a un pleasant attitude, unlike the brightly coloured machines of our time. "I wonder if the men have a nick name for this beast?" I wondered out loud. Our adventure was cut short, as a whistle blow sounded out and the men left their lunch table to start work again.
With an awful loud rumble the old excavator fired up. As the steam belched forth from it's stacks, the colour came back to the sky. The colour spread quickly and the men all started to disappear. As the colour came around to us, water rushed in where we stood but lucky at the same time the the gatehouse of reservoir number five began to build up beneath our feet. In a matter of minutes we were back in 2006.
We looked to see the mute man standing where he was before. He waved at us, and clapped his hands. "I wonder if he does this often?" I asked. "Well, it's one way to get on top of here!" Aimee replied. We giggled but not too loud as we didn't want to alert the guard to our new found viewing spot. We decided that we would stay atop of the gatehouse until dark and make our way down in the cover of night. The wait ahead wasn't a bad thing, as we both sat down and enjoyed the sunny day with a rare view of Portland atop gatehouse number five.
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