Jessica's House, Round 2

We tried again at Jessica's house, but she was not home. I left her a note and some Kona Coffee. As I walked away I noticed this:

That's a well in her front yard.

I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

Jessica's Well, Round 2

Remember that ferocious St. Bernard who made my first attempt at peeking over the fence around the well so lively? Well, someone must have given him a Xanax, because this is what he looked like today:

I swear he was much more fierce the day before.

Here is a better picture of the well and also of the backyard. Imagine it filled with drilling equipment, rescue workers, paramedics, firemen and cops. The rescue literally took over the neighborhood.

Do you see how small the well is? It's hard to believe that someone actually fit inside of it. The rescue shaft was dug parallel to well. After the rescue, the shaft was filled with dirt and a redbud seedling and chrysanthemums were planted above it, but those have since died and you can't really tell which dirt patch was the rescue shaft.

Here is a tv screenshot illustrating what was dug to rescue Jessica.


The entire rescue took 58 hours, largely because the soil was hard calachi, which is basically prehistoric cement, and very hard to drill through.

Jessica's Well, or, Where It All Went Down

The well is located in the backyard of a house where Jessica's aunt lived. It was a sort-of-daycare situation. Several people have lived there since. When we pulled up to the house, the owners' cars were in the driveway. We drove around the block, and discovered the back alley. This is the back fence.


Who knew Baby Jessica's Well had a guard dog? I didn't. He was pretty ferocious for St. Bernard. Adrienne and I pretended to read road maps until he lost interest in us.
This is a video I made while trying to look through the fence without alerting St. Vicious.

Finally, I got a glimpse of the well through a crack in the fence.

Here is a closer look.

After the rescue, the rescuers put a cap on the well that says:

For Jessica 10-16-87 with love from all of us

And here is the well with the swingset in the background. I wonder if this was Jessica's swingset.

Just after this photo, St. Vicious caught on to me, so Adrienne and I hightailed it out of there. We're going to go back tomorrow to see if we can get better documentation.