I awoke to the sound of children laughing and screaming this morning as I lay in a heavy coating of dew. Turns out that the bench I slept on was right beside a day care and that some of the kids had an interest in a foreign vagabond sleeping on a bench. After saying “Hi” to the kids and answering some of their questions I went to the payphone, woke ETMJ up and got directions to his house.

            I was sorry about waking up ETMJ so I decided to try and scout out some possible locations in and around the cities. After an hour and a half of randomly driving around in industrial areas I made my way to ETMJ house and woke him up again upon knocking on his back door.

            After not being able to get back to sleep ETMJ gave me the directions to some drains and so I set off to go draining. First up was the Triple Helix. Traversing the bluffs down to river level was not an easy task, tripping and sliding face first down the unstable slope.

Unlike the drains and outfalls of Winnipeg there were no grates to prevent access so I was able to walk in with ease. As the darkness quickly enveloped me a waterfall gushing large volumes of water appeared in the distance and began to cover my glasses in a thick mist. Seeing how I was already wet from slipping into the Mississippi I decided to just walk right through the column of cascading water and continue on.

Pissing in the Mississippi

The waterfall.

            Not long after the waterfall was a junction with an oval shaped neck breaker. I wasn’t sure if I traveling up this smaller pipe would lead to any reward so I hesitant about wasting my time and breaking my neck. But when in the Twin Cities, do as the Twin City drainers do. So I went and traveled up the neck breaker and followed it as it curved to the left. Not soon after the turn stood a large doorway and the mother of all drain prizes: a helix.

Looking at the the first helix from the doorway. Notice the horizontal brick work.

The top of the first helix.

            With its horizontal bricking and coarse concrete stairs the helix is an amazing piece of engineering. However one of the most interesting aspects of the helix is the cylindrical bricked room containing the street level access for workers or explorers via a man-hole. After trying to light paint and focus the camera I headed back to the main pipe to continue draining.

A manhole on the floor of the main drain pipe.

            About 15 minutes later another small oval shaped pipe appeared albeit on the opposite wall. This second helix was almost identical to the first helix with the only difference being this second one being filled with much more water.

            The final helix is by far the most impressive (although on helix would have satisfied my appetite). This third helix is part of the main drain pipe so its size is considerably much larger than the helix’s that preceded it. Much of the engineering is the same so after trying to take some pictures I headed back down the pipe in search of daylight.

The top of third and final helix

            Close to the Triple Helix were two small storm drain outlets, even though both of which were small in length, they were much more interesting than anything Winnipeg could ever produce. The first outfall was an oval shaped brick pipe that drained into a pool about six feet below the pipe. The second outfall emptied into the river via a small brick viaduct. This outfall was much more interesting than the first outfall as it was carved out of limestone including two small ledges and a concrete bottom.

The first outfall.

The second outfall.

            After climbing back up the bluff to the car I began to drive around the river in search of more drains or sewers. While driving around I found a small wooded depression where I thought there may be a drain outlet. Although I did not find any drains I found something much more interesting, a crap load of personal I.D. scattered throughout a 100m section in the bush. Everything from a S.I.N. card to his medi-care card was sitting in the mud.

            About 20 minutes later I found the location for another drain ETMJ gave me location for and once again I slid face first down the bluff. I found the outfall eventually but could not find my headlamp. With my other flashlight back in the trade school in Chicago this meant that I had to call it a day and head back to ETMJ house and find another light source.

            Upon arriving at his house ETMJ informed me that we were going to meet some of the other Twin Cities explorers at some Thai (or Chinese ?) restaurant later on in the evening and then go into the labyrinth with some newbie’s.

            Entry into the labyrinth was easier than I anticipated although it did require short jaunt down a multiple story ladder after [insert entry method]. After a short period of time the group came to an intersection where there were two choices to take; we could travel down another tunnel and stand underneath Interstate 94 or choose to travel further into the labyrinth. We chose to stand beneath I 94 before going to travel further into the lab.  

Under I-94

            From this point on the entire course of events became a large blur due to the fact that the tunnels all looked alike and a lack of sleep. Although the tunnels were interesting, I became somewhat bored after awhile due to the fact that I was being led everywhere. Any sort of adventure I felt had long passed. Seeing how I was unfamiliar with the city’s grid network of streets it was probably best that I was being led around because who knows how long I would have spent in the tunnels before finding my way out.

            It was getting late so we decided to head back to the surface and prepare myself for another day in paradise.