George Phlillips and I were at a shallow river (or wide creek) with a lot of dead bamboo-type plants on the banks. It was a small lake or pond with a creek running in and out of it. We were discussing how we thought that waterfalls were cool. There was a small one right next to us, but it wasn't very interesting. Upstream through the lake, before the feeding creek met the lake, there was a waterfall that was about 12 feet tall, and better yet, it had a cave under it about the size of my bedroom.

The banks were so filled with plants that we didn't want to walk on them, plus the waterfall was on the other side of the water. Fortunately for us, there was a small ferry-like boat coming through the lake, like the kind you'd ride at Disney World when you go to see the mechanical animals in the fake jungle river. We got on and found a bunch of late-middle school early-high school kids and one low-20's girl who seemed to be their chaperone or "adult supervisor" or whatever.

A bunch of them were calling this one kid "Die Gerke" (sp) which, when spelled right, is German for "the pickle." I thought "Oh! They're German! I'll try to talk to them!" I was forming cryptic sentences using the minimal German that I could remember, but they'd only repeat the sounds back to me very slowly and in a confused voice, so I could tell they couldn't understand me. So in desperation, I asked "Sprechen Sie English?" to which one responded "English? I'm glad to hear that...I couldn't tell what you were saying!!" As it turned out, they were Australian kids on a field trip and "die Gerke" was the only German they knew.

When we got to the waterfall, the creek that passed by it was covered in thick green algae, and when you could see in the water, it looked very deep. I asked them if they thought it'd be okay to swim in it. They said that it would probably be fun, except I might have to fight alligators. I opted not to swim in it, even though it was a neat waterfall.

We rode the boat back to the bank on the other side of the lake and I got out with George, who had turned into Mark Dietz. As we got off the boat, it had become a bus parked in the middle school teacher's lot. We turned around to wave goodbye to our boatfriends, who were all still on the bus. Then they got off and started running at us, apparently to say goodbye again. The first one was kind of a chubby kid, and I grabbed him by the arms as he tried to run back towards the bus. When the other kids got closer, I let go of his arms and he shot forward, running into, and knocking over, several other kids. We all had a good laugh.

Then their chaperone girl ran up to Mark and me and said that she had seen me and Keith (she referred to Mark as Keith) in a dream the night before but she didn't know who we were. Like me, Mark wanted to know more, so we looked up to Mr. McMahon, former Chemistry and Physics teacher, who was standing right beside her, and he said "Neal and Mark, if you two want to come with us (referring to the group of Australians) to Omaha tonight and accompany us until our flight leaves tomorrow morning, that will be all right."

Then my dad woke me up to tell me to hurry up and get all my clean clothes packed up because the road to Wayne Manor was still open and no-one had moved in yet. Right away I knew what he meant--today was moving day for the whole county, when people could move into vacant houses on a first come first serve basis. Wayne Manor was down by the river, and as a result of floods and heavy rains, the roads to it were in poor condition. However, since it was a vacant house, the county opened the roads so people would have an opportunity to move in. And since I had read my Batman comic books, I also knew that Wayne Manor was where the Bat Cave was. I deeply thought about becoming Batman and patrolling Auburn at night fighting crime. I knew I was under-built and under-trained, but those deficiencies could be overcome.

I had to phone around to find a place to stay for that night, though, cos Wayne Manor wasn't yet in a condition suitable for living. I phoned all these hotels (which happened to be in Lancaster, Lancs., UK) but they were giving me screwy directions. Finally I decided to just sleep on the floor.

Return to The Dreams Page.