We're in a short-term vacation  rental house in Columbia MO.
Somehow, we managed to get a house in a lovely part of town-
I guess  the rent  was a  little high for  this part  of the
world. If  you count  the finished  basement and  attic, the
house is 4 stories- most  houses in this neighborhood are as
large.

The  rental  house  itself  is   106  years  old.  In  other
countries, that  might not sound  like much, but in  the US,
that's pretty old.  If you're from the West  like me, that's
really old.  I don't think I  want to buy a  house this old,
since working on them is a whole different beast compared to
what I'm used to. I think  I'm a fairly handy fellow, but in
a house  this old, I'd  be online  all day trying  to figure
things out.

The yard  is amazing. I  guess some  of the trees  have also
been  around over  100 years,  and  many of  them dwarf  the
houses. There  is a trailhead  a few hundred yards  from the
front door, to the MKT trail.  We've taken a few walks on it
so far.

Since I  named this text  file for  the MKT trail,  I should
probably  talk more  about it-  unfortunately, I  don't know
much about yet. It seems to run down by the University. Near
our house, it  runs by a large (by my  standards) creek, and
through a fair bit of forest.  One of the signs says that it
goes for 8.something miles; I've only walked about 1.5 miles
on it. There are a few playgrounds for the kids.

The  trees are  beautiful. I  grew  up in  Oregon, and  can 
appreciate  a good  tree. Now,  if  I could  get myself  to 
behave around  them... but  these trees  have some  kind of 
vine. They  appear to be the  type that choke and  kill the 
trees, so  people cut  them at  the base.  The effect  is a 
lot of  jungle-looking vines,  some several  centimeters in 
diameter, just hanging there.                               

The kids and wife were with me  on one of the walks so I was
feeling playful, and I grabbed one  of the vines and swung a
tiny bit on it; just enough to get my feet off the ground. I
half  expected the  old vine  to easily  pull away  from the
tree, but I  was shocked to have it hold  me without budging
at all. With a new confidence, I backed up and got a running
start, then swung into the air.

You can tell where this is  going. On the second swing, just
as I  was in full  motion, the  vine decided that  it wasn't
really dedicated to hanging  around on that particular tree,
and it gave way at the top. It was quite lucky that I hadn't
started on the  up-swing; I flew through the  air and landed
gracelessly on  my backside as  if I were sliding  into some
imaginary  home plate.  Instead  of cheering  crowds, I  had
jeering kids and  a wife that could no  longer stand because
she was laughing too hard. The woody vine  toppled around me
and broke  into bits  as I sat  there. Goodbye  dignity, I'm
glad it was only my loved ones watching.

The moral of this MKT trail  story is: enjoy the beauty, but
skip the vine swinging. There are a few fraternities nearby,
so I'm sure I'm not the first.