Remember that time when we put a stake in the ground and the ground swelled up and the lunch area flooded at the park where the charity event was happening?
I just stumbled on to this video on YouTube: Grass Bubble Video Compilation
As I was watching it I, of course, remembered the time that my friend and I were volunteering at the MS 150 charity bike ride. This was probably in 1996 or ‘97. The event had ham radio operators at each rest stop as well as in most of the “sag wagons” providing rider support out on the course.
We were the operators at the Net Control station which was at the park where the riders started and finished the ride. We had set up on a picnic table in the park. All the picnic tables were near a pavilion where staff was preparing lunch for riders and volunteers. So that’s where we were.
We brought a big tarp to provide shade. We set it up in the morning, tied it to some trees on one side, but on the other side, no trees. We ended up just staking some lines into the grass and made a sort of shed roof. But later, the Sun moved!! So, we moved the tarp.
We had to move some of the lines that were holding the tarp taught. As we were doing that, my pal called out, “Nate? Come here!?” I walked over and the ground was swelling up! We just stood there, dumbfounded.
We didn’t know what to do. To get some more information, we did an experiment: we pulled the stake out of the ground. Water came out after it. The ground swelled and swelled and the water poured and poured. We quickly realized that it wasn’t going to stop. We hadn’t popped some bubble that would soon peter out. We talked to the event organizers and they contacted someone with the parks department.
The maintenance guy from public works (or whoever maintains the park) tried to figure out what was going on. They didn’t have any water lines in the area on their plans. He opened the stake hole more and reached in to feel for a broken pipe. He couldn’t feel anything.
Eventually I noticed that the grass was darker near the water leak. I thought, “wow, this grass greens up fast when you water it!” Then I noticed that the darker green continued away from the water leak in quite a straight line.
I followed the dark-green grass line to an access panel. (You know, one of those mini manholes like in the front yard of my old house.) I called the maintenance guy’s attention to it and he quickly opened the panel and shut the valve and the water stopped.
We had flooded so much of the area that we had to move the lunch that was being set up for the volunteers. Quite an embarrassment.
When I was much younger — probably not even ten years old — I learned that we could push the hose-end straight into the lawn and the lawn would swell. I don’t think I even remembered that when the thing at the park was happening.