Dark Hollow?! AGAIN???
A new part of the elusive Dark Hollow Park... along with some huge news!
We sleuthed out another top-secret entrance to the top-secret Dark Hollow Park this weekend...
But first, we have some huge news—because we've been holding out on you for the better part of a month!
Expected Unexpected Promotion
The last week of September, Athennia decided she wanted to apply for a line manager position at work at the behest of a friend who felt she would be a great fit and wanted her on his team; so, we spent a few hours sprucing up her resume for the first time in more than five years (since she hadn't needed a resume after starting with her current employer).
She had an interview the last day of September (a Friday) that she felt went extraordinarily well; but, midway through her workday the following Monday, she got cold-called by the CEO of another company who wanted to know if she might be interested in coming for an interview there.
The new company set up a four-hour interview (or rather, four separate interviews with four separate people) for that Wednesday—which meant that, since this new company was interested in Athennia's technical skills, we had 48 hours to revamp the resume we had just tweaked to showcase her managerial skills, and adjust all the verbiage to instead highlight her technical prowess!
...And, you know, to get her prepared for a grueling four-hour interview.
Tuesday night was crunch time, and the interviews on Wednesday all went perfectly! Athennia said each of the four men went over his allotted time (and they were all impressed to learn that she had been headhunted by the CEO directly).
Thursday afternoon, they reached out with a job offer: Principal technician on an upcoming project, with a net salary surpassing her current gross salary! They wanted her to start ASAP but realized that she wanted to give her current employer the courtesy of two weeks' notice.
So, long story short, by the time they worked out all the back and forth of getting her background-checked, waiting for her to look over and sign their non-disclosure agreement, and she tendered her resignation, this past Friday was her last day at her old job.
Well, sure there was, sport: You could've appreciated her for the past five years! Instead, you lowballed her, skimped with raises outpaced by inflation, and waited until she already had a foot out the door before you offered her the management position.
Lesson learned, muchacho: You can't put your seatbelt on after the crash :)
Athennia decided to take a week off between jobs to give us some time to finish the last of the deep-cleaning of the apartment since Taylor and the animals moved out back in June; and so, she starts the new job on Halloween Day :)
And now, back to our scheduled programming...
Unmarked Hollow
I was looking at a map again sometime last week... musing over how unbelievable it is that a park as big as Dark Hollow (~770 acres?) only has two entrances (neither of them particularly well-known or really marked at all on the map or the Parks & Rec website.
I had just happened to spot an aerial view of what looked like a tiny gravel parking lot, and I told Athennia I wanted to check it out at our earliest convenience... which ended up being this past weekend.
So, we headed up Almshouse Road, hung a right on Valley Road, and confirmed my findings...
Quite a hoppin' joint! I'm glad we were able to find a parking spot!
Seriously, was this even public property??
Yep... There's the only sign out next to the road.
Welcome to Dark Hollow. That's literally all you get.
When we first pulled in, there was one other car there. The driver—a guy in his 70s who introduced himself as Red—was standing next to it and finishing a cigarette.
I asked if he'd been here before. (Oh, sure. Plenty of times.) Then I lamented the lack of signage and such, and asked if he knew why everything about the park seemed to be so secretive.
Apparently, they used to stock the creek here with trout but stopped because the water is so contaminated. And, the county had various plans for trails and other development that fell through due to budget cuts or something.
In the meantime, you could consider letting the taxpayers know that they've bought all this land, and maybe some of them will actually come make use of it! Jerks.
Anyway, Red headed out and Athennia and I picked up a super-tight trail (tight as in claustrophobic, not as in awesome).
It obviously hadn't been traveled in an eternity, and I definitely wasn't keen on doing it in shorts; so, we made a note to come back in a month or two when it's below freezing and everything is dead.
We headed down to the creek to check that out instead...
I saw a good opportunity for a good old-fashioned—
KITTEN, PICTURE TIME; READY? GO!
We hung out on our little private island for a bit and found lots of cool pieces of quartz and granite; but then, we were ready to keep moving.
The only problem was finding a way across the creek on the far side of the culvert.
We each had waterproof shoes on; but, the water was just deep enough that you'd get punished pretty good if you missed a step and plunged a foot into it. (And, if you were to slip and fall on one of the moss-covered stones, you were just going in all the way.)
I identified a couple potential lines I'd be comfortable chancing as a last resort, but Athennia's significantly shorter than I am and didn't like her odds of being able to use the same stepping stones I intended to utilize; so, she kept looking for another way across...
Mission accomplished!
But, that tree was very dead (and I probably have an easy ~40 pounds on Athennia), and I didn't much feel like falling from that height (into the water or otherwise)... so, I took my chances with the precarious stepping stones.
There turned out to be not a whole lot more to see or do once we'd crossed, though I did get this one cool picture...
Also, Athennia and I each took one artsy shot. See if you can guess whose is whose...
After a couple just-in-case showers to de-tick, we headed to lunch at the Langhorne Qdoba and saw our buddy Larry (the store manager we met a week or so back).
Then we did a bit of work at the Athpartment—disassembling and reassembling her microwave rack that had been leaning, and prepping the living room for her to shampoo it sometime during her upcoming week off from work.
I took the opportunity to get a nice selfie in Riley's room as payback for her doing the same to me back in early September...
Sweet! All my Instagram followers are gonna think I have a sick futon and an Xbox... and, is there really anything more to life than that?
(Now, that really would be a Dark Hollow.)