Ogamaga the troll at the One Lane Bridge

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". - Dr. Carl Sagan
OGAMAGA
Legend has it that down a 12 mile dirt road, way out in the country, where no cell phone would have signal, under an old narrow one-lane bridge lives a troll named Ogamaga. I'm not really sure how the legend came about, or why Ogamaga chose this bridge. Maybe it was the fact that the closest street light or home is 6 miles in either direction? Maybe it was the fact that hunter's often threw the remains/carcasses of their kill off the bridge which would give him an easy meal? Who knows the reason Ogamaga chose this bridge, but it was definitely his home.

The way the legend tells it you are supposed to drive down the long dirt road and arrive just before midnight. Once you have put your car in park on the bridge, you are told to turn the entire car off; no radio, no heat, no headlamps and wait for midnight. At midnight Ogamaga will sacrifice an animal and when you turn your lamps back on, his sacrifice will be laying on the bridge. Or at least that's what they say....

Night Ride 11-25-2008

It looked as though our Tuesday night adventure was going to fall through. Joel was recovering from a bad cold and had to watch Mason, I was sore from the running/biking that I had done this weekend, and the rain had pounded two days earlier (making everything super muddy). Joel was the first to back out, and even though Jimmy and Alex gave him a ton of grief, he wasn't coming. We decided that tonight would be a good night for an easy, out and back ride down towards the bridge where Ogamaga dwelled.

We met at 7:00 and made sure we hydrated properly with Nature's water. After we quenched our thirst with steel, we headed out. As we rode we talked about Ogamaga and the legend. Each of us had tried the legend personally and had never seen Ogamaga. But we hoped tonight would be the night. While we were riding we laughed about stories we had heard from other people's experiences with Ogamaga. Evidently, some crazy things had happened at the bridge we were headed towards. The adventure and excitement was slowly building with each story.

What Alex and Jimmy didn't know was that Joel and I had a little surprise waiting for them at the Ogamaga's bridge. Joel was sick and didn't need to be out in the cold, but we decided he should stay plenty warm inside of a nice and cozy, full gorilla suit! Joel and I had planned earlier in the day to scare the crap out of Alex and Jimmy. We had it planned out perfectly. I was going to text message Joel as soon as Alex arrived. This would give Joel time to park his truck out of sight and hide near the bridge. I was going to build up the story as we talked during our ride and get Alex and Jimmy to pose by the bridge for a photo, just long enough for Ogamaga to appear. It was all I could do to keep from bursting into laughter during the ride.

When we arrived at Ogamaga's bridge we saw something that even I was surprised by. Ogamaga had left a recent "sacrifice" on the bridge. We hopped off of our bikes and posed bye the bridge to take a photo and take a look around. As we were examining Ogamaga's sacrifice, I asked Jimmy and Alex to pose for one last photo by the bridge. As they were posing Ogamaga came yelling from the brush!

This was the hardest I had laughed as far back as I can remember. Even when they realized that it was just a gorilla suit, their terror didn't end. In Jimmy's words, " When i saw it was a gorilla suit, I got even more worried. What kind of crazy a*^ redneck waits in the dark under a bridge in a gorilla suit?"

When Joel took of his mask, the laughter ensued. This was definitely going to be one for the books!

The Culprits:

The Victims:

In the end we all had a good laugh. But I'm positive the next time one of us comes up missing we'll all be on our toes!