The Aptly Named "Adventure Park"

August 27

I spent the day at the local ropes course (literally called “Parco Avventure”) and needless to say, it was aptly named. The park itself is a sort of obstacle course, but built into tall larch trees. There are many different courses, each varying in their degree of difficulty, but whether it’s the smallest course designed for 8 year olds, or the most difficult course available only to adults, each ends in a glorious zip line, making up for such discomforts as shaky knees and emasculating squeals.  

However, the afternoon’s story has nothing to do with the park itself, it simply provided the unsavory characters and unstable terrain upon which the story unfolded…

As we were going to spend the entire afternoon outside, Anna decided that rather than leave her dog, Spike, home alone, it would be prudent to bring him with us. What started as a reasonable decision turned out to be the “if only we hadn’t…” part of this anecdote.

Anna, being the most responsible/only Italian-English translator in our party, headed into the main office to negotiate ticket payment and the signing of the waivers, so it fell to me to hold Spike. Surveying our surroundings, Spike and I spotted an adorably friendly-looking black lab, so naturally we went over to make his acquaintance. However, much to our surprise, this dog was in no mood for friendly butt sniffing, and decided that Spike would make a better chew toy than a sidekick. I found myself caught in the middle of this tussle, tangled up in two leashes, and desperately kicking at Spike’s assailant. Carlo, seeing my distress, ran up and threw a sweatshirt over our foe’s face, momentarily disorienting the dog while he pulled Spike away from the scrap. However in his haste, Carlo failed to see the steps behind him, and fell backwards, breaking his fall on his arm. He eventually righted himself and appeared fine, but we later discovered that he had slightly fractured his right wrist, but Carlo is a tough grandpa and sports his new cast proudly (though he waited until we were done climbing before he deemed it necessary to visit the emergency room).