I swear, honestly, this really happened to me yesterday. What can a swear on a stack of?

On the trip from Daniel Boone National Forest (Kentucky) headed towards Blacksburg, Virginia, I enjoyed some beautiful two lane driving over the autumn doused mountains.


cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

Heading west to Bristol on highway 58, I was drawn in by the sign for Natural Tunnel State Park. It is really a naturally formed tunnel through the limestone that is used as a passage for the railroad. My kind fo place to wander, take photos, enjoy in the non-tourist season.

After parking at the top, I managed to miss the trailhead down to the bottom, where the tunnel is (and if I did, I would not have this story), and ended up pn the overlook above, looking straight down 300+ feet to the tunnel. The light was not superb, but faintly I heard engine noises and thought “this would be a good spot for some StoryBox video, get the train rolling into the tunnel.

I was holding my iPhone over the fence edge, waiting for the train to come. It was rolling video. I thought I would also get a still shot with my DSLR, and swung it off my shoulder, getting this last picture before The Event:


cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog

As the trains was closing in, I had another thought, “It would be really bad if I lost grip on my iPhone….”

And I did.

It jumped out of my hands!

In slow motion I saw it drop straight out of my view, right down the sheer cliff below me. I could not even see the bottom because of the way it fell of steeply.

Oh s********

Actually I laughed a little. What could I do? I dropped my iPhone down a cliff.

So I hustled around and found the trail to the bottom. It leads you to a platform that crosses the tracks. You are not supposed to go off the platform, but the base of the cliff was across the creek, so I shimmied down to the water, walked across the 18″ deep water.

I scoured the base, back and forth, carefully in a grid. I looked in the water, maybe it bounced. Then I looked up and noticed about 40 fet up was a wider ledge directly below the cliff, and likely where tyhe phone landed. There was no way up there w/o equipment.

It was gone.

I was phoneless.

Here is my re-enactment of the sad affair:

So now I am forced to go out and get a new iPhone. Weep. Weep (well it will be when I see the price).

All my apps and music of course can be restored. What I lost were a few videos I had shot that day. Worse were the loss of some road notes I had taken and not synced or forwarded in a long time.

No use crying. It is still funny to me. Seriously.

I dropped my iPhone in a canyon. I am Honest. As in Beer.


cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by mhartford


Featured Image:

I was innocent once
I was innocent once flickr photo by duncan cumming shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license

If this kind of stuff has value, please support me by tossing a one time PayPal kibble or monthly on Patreon
Become a patron at Patreon!
Profile Picture for cogdog
An early 90s builder of the web and blogging Alan Levine barks at CogDogBlog.com on web storytelling (#ds106 #4life), photography, bending WordPress, and serendipity in the infinite internet river. He thinks it's weird to write about himself in the third person.

Comments

  1. Isn’t there an outdoor shop nearby? You might get someone to salvage it for you for a small fee. I’d if I was nearby.

  2. Pingback: iHome - CogDogBlog

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *