driving the rail line

Went up to my cabin, took a few hours to drive the old rail line and came across a few interesting ghost towns, abandoned churches, hall, school, etc. There was only so far we could go until we reached a place where they removed a bridge. We enjoyed the time we had searching for long abandoned locations.

 

winter grid drive

There is a ghost town that I have never had the chance to check out, until now. Unfortunately there was two building left, both surrounded by huge snow drifts and the whole thing did not look very interesting. It was also very touristy, with signs stating where the buildings used to be and what the purpose of them was. I continued onto nearby towns and found some more interesting things such as a church with a garage door in the back, old bar and a small stone church. Here are just a couple photo's from the trip.

station way

I get restless sitting around my apartment so go for drives once and a while to see what I can find. Lucky for me SaskUrbex also enjoys this so we went out together for a quick drive and found a couple things. With all this snow around its still hard to get to things and flooding is on the way.

ice road travels

The other day I was out with Saskurbex and he had heard the ice road was open. We decided to drive across it and explore a bit on our way. We checked up on some ghost towns to see if anything had changed and found some new churches we had missed in the area. We also drove through a couple towns we had never seen before and found a few interesting buildings & schools. I decided to post just a couple buildings we found.

gospel & tack shop?

drifted grids

The other day I decided to make a quick trip out because there was no wind! I went out with saskurbex and we decided to stay nearby and visit a stone church we had found at night a few months ago. The grids were fine until we arrived to the one leading up the church, it was full of snow and nothing any vehicle could make it through. The snow drifts were extremely high but since it was nice outside we decided to walk. It was definitely worth it as the sun was beautiful against the frosted snow and the drifts in the graveyard were very interesting.

quick valentines day drive

Usually around valentines day I take a large multi day trip somewhere around the province. This year things got changed around and it just didn't work out. I still managed to convince saskurbex to go out on a small one day trip to see what we could find. It was nice to get out but because of all the snow from this winter its hard to get to anything. We did find a few churches, community center and a ton of deer.

Here are some pics from that trip:

random and worthy of a picture..

this was only a small portion of deer we found on the roads we drove

and a nice pink sky to end the day...

christmas hall

To celebrate the christmas season Saskurbex, Scythe & I decided to head to a town hall we had visited last year. Unforunately things change over a year and the piano along with our favorite decorations were gone. The christmas tree was still there and the basement was frozen with 2 feet of ice. This proved to be alot of fun as Scythe & I played some hockey with 2 brooms and a big wax candle shaped like a pine cone. The hall was still fun but this may be the last year we go there at christmas.

Some highlights:
- little frogs frozen in the ice
- ice perfect for hockey
- frozen chairs in the ice
- christmas tree still intact
- nothing broken
- saskurbex falling into waist high snow on the way back
- visiting an old abandoned church on the way

face off!

one of many little frogs frozen

merry christmas 2010

Cheers!
Merry Christmas from VanishedCompass & SaskUrbex!

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:

west is warm

This trip is the definition of last minute. Saskurbex and I didn't have a plan until the very last minute and the area we explored was chosen because it was supposed to be the warmest area in the province that day . We gathered up our gear and hit the road with only a few locations in mind.

At the start of the day the roads were nice and the sun was out. The downfall was the windchill, it was very cold and so we could only spend a short time outside before we started to freeze. As the day went on the weather got worse and by the end of the night there was blowing snow all over the roads complete with some freezing rain. We took a secondary highway back which was not to bad but then decided to move to the main highway which may have been a mistake. There was whiteout conditions and everyone was slow moving. Between having to scrap the windshield of freezing rain, windchill, blowing snow and crazy drivers it was an interesting night.

We did find a few neat things on the trip so that made it worthwhile. Here are some of the highlights:

- finding a church with power
- creating techno beats on an old electric organ
- finding a couple old school houses
- a school with power & full of antiques, no lock on the door
- annoying saskurbex with ode to joy on the piano
- very deep snow
- saskurbex driving us into the ditch