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UER Forum > Journal Index > drie's journal > Four days, two asylums, a mansion, a power plant, a resort hotel and a college! (Viewed 4145 times)
Four days, two asylums, a mansion, a power plant, a resort hotel and a college!
entry by Drie 
8/31/2004 4:37 PM

So...

We had some company this weekend. PSX and I met up with Eatstoomuchjam, Kowalski, Dagr and Snows to trespass across the Hudson valley in true Bored Middle Class style.

Jam came in friday night, so saturday morning we headed out to the Kirk at an asylum to check out the collapses. This day became an exercise in walking on unsafe flooring, as this particular building is falling apart. This came to a head when both Jam and myself put a foot through the floor in places just a little too close together for comfort, while trying to get around a locked door on the second floor. PSX, being the smart one, avoided this and waited calmly on the stairs for us to either fall to our deaths or come back to where we started. Luckly, we didn't die, and after an interesting exit (water torture, anyone?) we made it back to the car.

After this, we headed out to one of our favorite places in Kingston, only to find out it had been knocked down. Much sadness ensued as PSX and I whined about this for at least an hour. As an alternative, we headed over to Wyndecliffe, a formally abandoned mansion in Rhinebeck, to check out the reconstruction efforts. This place recently got bought and is being restored to original condition. It's a beautiful place, and since no one was around we shot some pics and headed back to meet Kowalski and Dagr for dinner.

Next morning, we set out rather early for a long trip to another asylum. We had an interesting discussion at breakfast over the differences between the sizes of American large OJ vs. Canadian. Upon arriving at the asylum, we found that the owners had boarded up a window we usually use to get in, only to leave a grate to the steam tunnels, about five feet away, completely untouched. A slightly confusing walk around this tunnel took us to the auditorium, and from here we hit the patient tunnels, and headed over to the Kirk. The highlights here included an enormous dead bird, and a bat which I thought was dead, but wasn't. Anotner comic moment came when I tried a door which seemed to be locked, and spent a good five minuted contemplating going through the huge hole in it surrounded by jagged glass. Dagr, however, pulled on the door just a little harder than me, and it popped open. I cracked up. Wish I had that on tape!

From here, we decided it would be awesome to get to the jail, so we hit the tunnels again, and took one seriously wrong turn. This lead to me walking on the pipes ahead of everyone, while they waded behind me. I was thinking I was going to be the smart one, being dry, when I fell into the water up to mid-thigh when the insulation on the pipe I was walking on gave way. We pretty much were all soaked now, and when we saw an upward angled steam tunnel, we jumped at the chance to follow it. It led through some crawl spaces, inhabited by some of the ugliest spiders i had ever seen. Kowalski called them "dread spiders". i was completely grossed out by them. We ended up in a formally unexplored building, which we later found out was the laundry area for the facility.

After some backtracking, we finally found our way to the jail. We played some basketball in the gym here, and played in wheelchairs. After a break in the cafeteria in the north side, where we translated a poster about choking from spanish to english, we headed out and headed over to a power plant in yonkers.

Finding the power plant was easy because it had huge smoke stacks and was right next to the train station. As we headed in, we heard someone screaming at us from across the train tracks. Sounded some thing like "Where you goin!? Don't go in there! Oooooh, they goin in there!" Yeah, we went in there. It was quite dark at this point, and we couldn't see much except for the fact that the place was in pretty awful shape. We risked some neck by climbing around some seriously rusty stairs, some stairs with missing stairs, some catwalks with missing railings, and some catwalks with missing floors. Kowalski and Dagr hit the roof, PSX and I explored the front of the building and the courtyard, and no one is really too sure where jam ended up.

Upon leaving, we ran into two girls who had had some trouble with the train conductor and got themselves kicked off the train. (The conducter was a jerk and took their tickets on purpose.) We gave them some cash for new tickets and hung out with them for a few minutes.

From here, we headed back to my house, to sleep and then head out early once again.

We met up with 'Snows early in the morning and headed over to a girls college in millbrook. I was extremely happy to be going here as I had done this place a lot in high school, but hadn't been in for a serious trip in almost two years. The place is still awesome but it's falling down more and more as the winters get to it. My personal favorite part of this trip was hitting the basement, which is full of awesome mech room stuff. Mostly on this trip we were split up, and it was a lot of fun to be exploring and run into another member of the group.

From here, we headed out to my favorite place on the planet, an abandoned resort hotel in the Catskills. We checked out the progress of the decay in the lobby, and in the auditorium, then proceeded to work on the mystery of room 1039. All the keys to the rooms, for the most part, are in the lower lobby, with the exception of a few random rooms, and THIS ONE. It's been bugging me forever, because on the room view key, it's listed as a unique suite, and its one of the few rooms in the complex with no connecting rooms. Bordered on one side by an elevator and the other side with closets, there's just no way in. We tried picking the lock, roofing it from across the complex, and various other techiniques before we decided we just needed better equipment and headed out.

We dropped snows at his car, and headed back to my place. PSX headed home, and the rest of us crashed out. Dagr and Kowalski headed back to Canada. they're probably still driving as I type this. All in all, it was an awesome weekend.

Can't wait to do it again!



tunnels in one asylum

24971.jpg (37 kb, 400x620)
click to view


college
24972.jpg (44 kb, 413x750)
click to view


another asylum...
24973.jpg (25 kb, 600x504)
click to view


the floor in the first kirk
24986.jpg (67 kb, 500x707)
click to view




[last edit 8/31/2004 9:27 PM by Drie - edited 3 times]
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Comments: (use Reply to add a comment)
dagr 


Location: Mississauga
Gender: Male
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Re: Four days, two asylums, a mansion, a power plant, a resort hotel and a college!
< Reply # 1 on 8/31/2004 7:30 PM >
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Posted on Forum: UER Forum
addendum/correction: Dagr stuck his head through the jagged glass hole, and saw that the door was not properly seated in the frame, and couldn't be locked. Clearly force was required.

~ Dagr




EatsTooMuchJam 


Location: Minneapolis, MN
Gender: Male
Total Likes: 24 likes


Squirty "Stickybuns" von Cherrypants

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Re: Four days, two asylums, a mansion, a power plant, a resort hotel and a college!
< Reply # 2 on 9/1/2004 12:39 PM >
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Posted on Forum: UER Forum
That was a really fun weekend! Thanks! I'll probably be back in the area in two or three weeks and I hope to arrange a weekend off again!

"I said you COULD do that - not that you should!"




"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away."
-Tom Waits
Caput_58 


Location: Virginia, USA
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Re: Four days, two asylums, a mansion, a power plant, a resort hotel and a college!
< Reply # 3 on 9/1/2004 7:08 PM >
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Nice sunbeam in that first picture.




Servo 


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Re: Four days, two asylums, a mansion, a power plant, a resort hotel and a college!
< Reply # 4 on 9/1/2004 10:32 PM >
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Posted on Forum: UER Forum
The college is extremely photogenic... in fact some of my favorite shots that I've taken are there. Just as long as you don't mind putting a foot through the floor.

They really ought to try and preserve it before it falls down...




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