The Drama & Adventures of Cooper's Recycled FreeCycle Slide Thang

The Slide Thang...

August 2009
As found on San Diego's freecycle (Thanks Ian!)...

Ian's original picture of the slide thing. (Recolorized for definition, rotated, recropped and reformatted.)

I had to wait through the weekend to go from third on the list to ichiban ("A" Number One!). Went to scope it out on Tuesday, August 4th and decided to start the dismantling process right away (even though neither of us had eaten yet and it was REALLY hot. We were just REALLY excited).

As we began to disassemble...

Began to disassemble the "slide thang" and then thought we just might appreciate pictures from varying angles showing how it was originally put together. You know, just in case...

And yes, at two years, one week and two days, Cooper could already climbe both the ladder and the rope ladder, and slide down the slide. (The vertical cargo net might take a week to get the hang of...)

As we left the yard at the end of first day...

The pieces of the "slide thang" that were giving us "issues"

Ran into a few dilemmas getting the base apart and the support beams off. Mostly the issue was rusted bolts that had been underground, and the fact that we didn't have a large enough screwdriver to remove the slide from the landing. (Nevermind the fact that we hadn't noticed the locking nuts that were corroded to the other side.)

As we left the yard for the last time...

Where the "slide thang" sat, now stands Cooper.

We ended up destroying a couple of the base boards (but they'll be cheaper to replace than the beams). We ended up prying off the board that the slide was attached to, because there was NO way we'd be able to transport the slide attached to the platform. All we left behind was two seat cushions and one blanket that had been on top of the "thang" (concerned about the black widow(s) we had seen). We did NOT leave the Cooper behind.

As we arrived home with final pieces...

If we've got an 8 ft. truck bed, so that's got to be at least a 10 foot slide. Cooper wins! Well, he'll win eventually. Tomorrow we unload and start clearing an area. My plans for this "slide thang" include making a shady area for car repairs. We'll see how that works out in the end...

More slide thang adventures to come!

Update 2012 -- We had to leave the area shortly after aquiring the "slide thang", so it was freecycled once again. (I just forgot all about it and neglected to update for 2½ years. As they say, "Out of sight, out of mind.")