on my route. . .

On my route I needed gas but all I could find was an abandoned gas station. . .
If I needed car repairs that wouldn't have been possible. All I was able to find was an abandoned garage. ..
Then I tried to seek some tourist information for the area, but all I could find was an abandoned information center. . .
And on my route I passed many overgrown rail lines and one's missing signs.. .
It was an interesting route, to say the least.

demolition fail

When i first moved here for the summer i explored a modern school that had been abandoned for years. About once a week i would go inside and walk the halls of a once busy school. It was partially flooded but full of desks, computers and other remnants of its past life. Many people in the city did not even realize this school was sitting abandoned for years.

It had been said for years that this school was going to be demolished for a new condo project. Nothing happened for years and i was under the impression this school may be here for a while. None the less Saskurbex & Phoenix Enigma came down to explore it in case things changed.

Good thing they did because demolition started a few weeks ago on the school. Built on a hill on the edge of a valley, this location is beautiful and i can understand the value of the land. With this location comes problems and the construction crew soon realized this.

See below the demolition fail:

(clip from the Estevan Mercury)
someone forget about the fact that they are on the edge of the valley. ^-^

Below are some photo's of its demolition:

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

twisted metal

This goes along with my industrial mayhem post. We returned to the mine and here are the pictures that i took. Since there was very little left i took an artsy abstract approach to things and took some interesting pictures of the mental piles left from the buildings being torn down.