night lights

Another boring day i knew i had to get out for a while. I suggested the idea of a night exploring trip to Bitty and she was all for the proposed idea. We dressed for the weather, grabbed the flashlights and gear and hit the road. No real destination in mind we kept a lookout for any abandoned buildings and checked out an abandoned rail line. Not much to see on the spots we had in mind we did find a few farmhouses and checked out a familiar place on the way back.

Some events from the trip include:
- a skunk walking down the road back and forth in front of my car
- many frogs on the road
- hearing a large rustle in the grass at an abandoned house
- fireflies all over
- Bitty not being able to say mosquito correctly
- trying to teach Bitty how to use my camera in the dark *sigh*
- ticks!

6 ticks 10 minutes

I went out to visit my grandma who i have not seen in a couple years for a few hours. Now that i am living where i am she is only an hour away and i figure it was time to go out there.

When i arrived we hung around the yard then decided to take the quad out and explore some buildings. Yes that's right - my grandma loves to look for abandoned buildings. We explored a few houses in the area and found some old stone house ruins. Some of these places involved getting past fences and i was impressed that my grandma kept up. She even came in all the houses to check things out.

Within 10 minutes i had 6 ticks!

I plan to go out again and explore some more in the area with her but for now here the photo's from this little trip.

these are not abandoned - but they are neat

my great uncles binoculars are used by my grandma to bird watch

east & west grids

I recently found out that a co-worker of mine is more than willing to come on road trips and explore abandoned buildings with me! If you see the name Bitty pop up on my blog you will know who i am talking about.

The original plan was to travel alone because its hard to find people who enjoy this hobby but the company is always nice. Now that i have this friend that will come out with me we have hit the road and gone both east and west to find new locations and things to explore.

On this recent trip we saw plenty of wildlife and found abandoned churches and houses. Some of the highlights include:

- Bitty driving 50 down the highway
- having a man stop by and ask us if we need help while in an abandoned house
- finding abandoned churches
- going up to an old bell tower with blue stained glass
- tripping on carpet covering a large vent and taking a face plant - the jeans did not survive and my knee lost a few layers of skin
- a door on the floor leading to the basement
- Bitty smashing her foot in the door
- Finding clearance bread being used for the communion in a church
- driving through a field on a muddy windy road
- Bitty being fascinated by cows on the road
- having a turtle cross the road in front of us

now time for the photo's..

all natural light - no effects

Bitty preaching to an empty church

macro mining

On the way back from the big tripped we stopped at a mine we have been to a few times now. Since i have pictures documenting the entire place i decided to take a different point of view and go macro.

Enjoy.

I know these next two are not macro but i wanted to share these with you -
they show how big this mine was

mountain mining part 2

When we go on larger trips its always hard to sort through the photo's and pick the ones that best describe them. In this case i had more than usually post on one blog entry so here is part two!

mining equipment

mine

inside an old mining camp (captain canada & saskurbex)

coal core samples @ mining camp

more core samples - all labeled & stacked

mountain mining

Most of what we saw on the big trip were mines, mining camps and tipples.

The locations were very interesting and each had its own things to offer. There were plenty of photo opportunities - we spent hours wandering around these areas. As some of them were coal I always went in clean and came out covered in black. As per usual i am always the one who gets the dirtiest.

One of the places we went into i realized i had forgotten a flashlight and the building was fairly dark. After i got in the building there was a large flashlight sitting on a shelf that worked. Lucky for me i used it the entire time and then put it back before i was done.

creek through an old mine camp building

Photo Credit: Phoenix Enigma
tipple

saskurbex and i had a fight over this

mining equipment
Photo Credit: Phoenix Enigma

saskurbex, arilem (me) & captain canada
@ the top of an old mine - it was a steep drop but we went down anyways!
Photo Credit: Phoenix Enigma