[Dantilla]

I had some pretty cool tree forts.

The most elaborate was the "stilt fort". There were no trees where we wanted one, so we built it up on 4 x 4 "stilts", with a trap door in the floor, and a ladder we could pull up to keep others out. We had a tar paper roof, and paneling left over from my friend's house on the inside of the walls. We even sized the windows to fit a couple of screens we found. Patchwork carpet on the floor. It had a great view over a cliff. That's why it was imperative to have a tree house there, even if there were no trees.

Another one in a madrona tree was three stories. The higher up we built, the tougher to make a solid structure, as the tree branches sway in the breeze.

The third one of honorable mention was built under the lower branches of a big fir tree, so that it was pretty well hidden.

Since my dad was in construction, I had a big advantage over other kids who went asking for bent nails to straighten out from construction sites- I'd grab handfulls of new nails from boxes in our garage.

Lots of fun for a few neighborhood boys searching for adventure.