Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What's something you've done that almost nobody else has ever done?

In October 1983 I was on a mapping trip into a cave called Devil's Dungeon located east of Dale Hollow Lake. The trip was under the auspices of the National Speleological Society (NSS) and its purpose was to push beyond earlier explorations that had stopped at a place called Bob's Birth Canal. The cave was called Devil's Dungeon because there was a 400 ft belly crawl to get into cave before you could stand up.

My job was to get through Bob's Belly Crawl (BBC) using a WWII surplus trenching tool and go as far as I could. BBC was named for a small fellow named Bob who wriggled through this hole in the wall. After 2 hours, he managed to get to a room with 10 ft ceilings, and then he popped back in the whole and wriggled out. The sight of this muddy fellow coming back out of the hole at the end earned this opening its name.

I was 6'3", 190 lbs at the time. They figured if I could get through, anyone could. There were alternating layers of flowstone and clay at the bottom of BBC. All I had to do was lift up a slab of flowstone and dig out the clay underneath. It was hard work, but I got through.

After emerging into the anteroom on the other side, I pushed solo for 300 yards through virgin cave. I was not only the first human, but probably the first vertebrate to get into these passages. I stopped when I got to a large wall and felt a strong blow issuing from a crack. This meant there was a large bit beyond, but I was alone and this was well beyond the limit of safety.

I was rather muddy from the trip through BBC, on the way out, I found a side room with a nice steady flow of water coming from the ceiling. I washed off in the water before heading back to the anteroom and returning through the BBC. On the way out, it only took me about 10 minutes to get through. The BBC had been widened considerably through my efforts.

In making my report to the cartographer, I mentioned my visit to the room with the water coming from the ceiling. I told him that, should I ever have the opportunity to do so, I'd like to get hold of Gunite machine and do a bathroom just like this place. As a result the cartographer named the room "Bill's Bathroom." The NSS frowned on name so on the final map it ended up as "Bill's Shower." This is now an place name on the official map. I can therefore say that I had my name on the map before I turned 25 years of age.

I have one small side story. Devil's Dungeon is very close to Sgt. Alvin York's Grave outside Pall Mall. It's next to a farmstead that bore a close resemblance to the farm York dreamed about down in the bottoms. About 15 years after my trip down that hole, I ended up marrying a girl from Alvin York's extended family, a girl from McCreary County, Kentucky. York's mother and KYHillChick's father's mother both come from the same tribe, at least by one way of figuring.

Ah, we have the same town and year of birth..... Dang, we are gettin' pretty old....

"... Two 14 hour days coming out with a pack in excess of my own 150 pounds. I was younger then. Possibly a few inches taller too! smile. Haven't gotten any smarter, just older..."

I've had times when I knew I was packing a little over my own scrawny mass.... but these days I can barely lift my own eyebrows.
Like the Indian in "Outlaw Josey Wales", I tell my wife often, "I used to have powers!"

Drilled and tapped energized 480 volt, 2000 amp buss and installed lugs for a new transformer feed in a health care facility. No available buckets, no other way to do it.

Stopped a charging bear at 10 yards on a moose hunt up in Canada. 250 grain out of a 338 Win mag, was like it hit a brick wall. And didn't crap in my pants!

I'm hurt you are just now telling me that.
Or, I am hurt by hearing that.
something like that....

I broke a half inch, high strength log chain in two places with one pull. If you don't believe that, I'm not sure I do either, but I picked up three pieces of chain after that pull.

He's not a texan. You can tell...because he doesn't tell everyone he's a texan within the first 9 seconds of conversation.

My claim to doing something few have done?
I believe every one of these stories.

That's a cool story.

If CookieDawg could talk, he would tell you what RenAMoron has done that very you sickos have done.

Nothing I'm going to tell about.

I've been banned from TnDeer.com 127 times

Yeah. We're special that way. You could expect nothing less from the campfire.

That is a whopper of a fish story right there!

And that's the damn truth.
Rule#1 According to Slumlord "Never get attached to a sock puppet"

Small town here has weekly stock sales at the edge of town. They had a cowboy to run down the strays/ escapees. Was pretty common to go to
Iunch on the square and see a steer hightailing it thru traffic with this guy and his horse in hot pursuit. Probably not that uncommon in the west but not something you see in central Kentucky every day. That guy was pretty good with a lasso.

And here the roar Carolyn and I heard a few times last September, we thought we'd finally just heard a vocalization that was common but we'd never heard... maybe it was more rare...

We've been in the group of cows and bulls like you mention an couple of times. Never a bull large enough to shoot, but that mattered not, it was just flat amazing. Told Carolyn, I suspect not that many have been in gropus like that. Dont' recall the actual numbers, but some cows and close to 10 bulls... one with nice long drop tine but only 40 inches or so...

I will share one on my cousin since he can't. He was welding in a torpedo tube not much bigger than him many years ago at the shipyard he worked at. A ball of weld went down his pants and landed on his private. It didn't take him long to get out of there.

Should have clarified - giving it - not taking it LOL.

When I was 14 I mowed a 26 year old lady's lawn that lived down the street. I mowed it all summer.