hill billy ghost town

I went up to my cabin and decided to do some exploring in the area. The area north of my cabin is what people like to call "hill billy country". It's full of small, mostly abandoned towns where people will live in virtually any type of housing and most run on wood stoves. This area is also full of hunters during the right season as it is quite forested. I spent a few hours driving through some of the towns and came across this one, a small quaint town full of abandoned houses and buses convereted into homes.. thats right - a bus house.

sask's own ski tunnel

Who would have thought a "flat" province would have so many abandoned ski hills?

My third ski hill in the past few years, this was is the least exciting but still has its perks. At one time it could brag about "Saskatchewan's only ski tunnel" - this long abandoned ski hill has been turned into biking trails. The chalet remains boarded up, its history locked inside. The lifts still going up the hill and cables laying on the ground.

I also found an abandoned church on my way home from this hill so I decided to share that as well!

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.

what intersection?

The other night there were very bad road conditions. On our way back we decided to stop at a couple potential ghost towns. Unfortunately for us saskurbex hit ice and ended up driving us straight through a t-intersection into the ditch. Fortunately for us i have both CAA and cell phone reception with virgin mobile. We were rescued in a fairly short time but it seemed like forever as we watched the weather outside get worse.

My tip to everyone is be prepared, make sure you have all the necessary winter clothes and an emergency kit. I have CAA which definitely saved me in this case and having a phone that you know has reception around the province will also prove helpful in the end.

Here are some photo's of the vehicle:

unexpected ghost town

Phoenix Enigma, Saskurbex and I all went out a road trip with no real destination in mind. We knew the area we wanted to be in, but not sure what we would find. One of our first stops was a ghost town, an unexpected ghost town. Old business's, houses and a town hall all still intact we put on our boots and started to walk around the town. Not much vandalism to our surprise we took this oppertunity to take many photo's and spend more time then we planned to in the town.

Here are a few snapshots:

found an old storage area.. only i could fit comfortably inside :p

Phoenix Enigma with a handle to nowhere

old wax McDonalds cups.. its been so long

why people always leave dishes in the sink is beyond me

brand didnt matter as long as they had horseradish

and the bus.. all of us loved this bus
(but phoenix enigma was especially fascinated with it)

gas shortage

I am not sure if this happens to anyone else but it seems every time I am on a trip and I look for a gas station all the ones I find are abandoned! Its not that I don’t like abandoned gas stations but when I need to fill up my car I really wish they were open.

Take for example this one trip where I hit 4 storms in 2.5 hours and I was running out of gas. I saw a sign for a nearby town and it said they had gas. I thought I was in luck, whats the chances of finding a gas station out in the middle of nowhere while trying to avoid storms? It was to good to be true – the gas station had long since been abandoned. The building boarded up and the gas pumps dry.

One of our trips we found a town with another abandoned gas station. Sign still in place, gas pump dry and building sitting empty. Maybe this is just me, but there seem to be a lot of abandoned gas stations in this province.

I figured I could dedicate a blog entry to the abandoned gas stations I have been to. So here are some of my pictures from times when I thought I could get gas and soon realized the pumps were dry and the station was long abandoned.