El Granada, California always had the best mix of suburban housing mixed in with empty lots and huge groves of Eucalyptus trees. This created a great enviroment for kids to built tree houses, forts  and neighborhood jumps. The town is much more devleloped now, so most of the places I remember from my youth have become new houses. Other tree forts and jumps have been destroyed purposedly in this new age of liability. However, a few of these old masterpieces survive, and a couple are still built and manage to stay alive for a while before being torn down by scared property owners and uptight dog walkers. Here are two I viseted today:

[caption id=”attachment_139” align=”aligncenter” width=”300” caption=”A smaller, closer to the ground fort with the big one just visible in the background.”][/caption]

[caption id=”attachment_140” align=”aligncenter” width=”269” caption=”The big house up in the trees.”][/caption]

[caption id=”attachment_141” align=”aligncenter” width=”224” caption=”Climbing Up. Much higher than it appears in the picture.”][/caption]

[caption id=”attachment_142” align=”aligncenter” width=”300” caption=”View from inside.”][/caption]

[caption id=”attachment_144” align=”aligncenter” width=”300” caption=”Ground fort, view from above. It has a rain cover and camo.”][/caption]

[caption id=”attachment_145” align=”aligncenter” width=”300” caption=”Nice place to chill.”][/caption]

[caption id=”attachment_143” align=”aligncenter” width=”224” caption=”One of the exits/entrances to the ground fort.”][/caption]