It all started with my alarm waking me up at 6:30am. I looked out the window and groaned to myself as I saw that it was raining outside the hotel room. I drove nearly 5 hours in one direction to do some exploring in this particular city and the weather was awful.
I crawled out of bed and noticed that the rain was beginning to stop and instead the entire city was covered in a blanket of thick fog. Realizing the opportunity I had, I took advantage of this cover and decided to try my luck at one of the old grain elevators in the city.
The previous day, I was really frustrated driving around, because it seemed like every abandoned location was in easy eye-shot of people and many places were crawling with security. I thought, perhaps, in this thick fog I could avoid detection and simply walk to the grain elevator.
I parked my car along the road, about 20m from the old property gate. My hope was that anyone driving by would just think I was walking the beach or something. The gate had old faded "No Trespassing" signs and the perimeter fence was rusty and old. Perhaps nobody was monitoring this property? I wasn't sure.
I walked around the fence, where it met the shoreline and headed directly towards one of the old buildings near the grain elevator for cover. I noticed nobody and nobody noticed me. I made my way through the open field towards the massive concrete structure, which slowly appeared through the fog, like a giant ghost.
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The fog, concrete, graffiti and twisted steel made this setting look like some post-apocalyptic video game rendering.
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I made my way around the giant. Initially I was disappointed to see all accesses were welded shut and barred, but then I noticed a large window with just enough rebar to climb inside.
Inside the bottom floor was a large room with large windows and holes in the floor where grain chutes used to be.
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In one corner was a small office with beautiful windows.
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With so many rooms welded shut on the main floor, I was beginning to think I wouldn't be able to make it up to the top. Walking behind the the front section of the building, I did a little happy dance/flail thing in celebration when I discovered a rear door was unsealed, allowing access to the stairs. I continued to do a happy dance/flail when I saw the most beautiful stairs I've ever seen.
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The stairs kept going up and up for almost 30 storeys. It was insane. Beside the stairs was an elevator shaft. The room with the stairs and the elevator shaft was like a tall concrete tube, and there were sections between floors where the stairs just climbed by themselves, attached to nothing but small stabilizing bars in the middle of the room, rising up for nearly 20 meters before meeting another floor. It was beautiful and a little scary.
Finally, I reached the top levels, and was greeted by beautiful windows, which the fog was flowing through and making the walls wet.
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I was inside a cloud while photographing this place, which is why the photos appear a bit hazy.
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These giant grain hopper/scales were at the top of the building.
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I made my way from the elevator section to the storage bins, walking through the passageway where the conveyor belts used to be.
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The top of the storage bins had this large room where conveyors and chutes would bring grain to individual bins. The fog was drifting through the room.
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As the wind picked up, the fog was beginning to lift and I was running out of time. Little did I know, I already had run out of time.
I looked across the yard to see a truck parked right behind my car. "Ah shit," I thought to myself. I was pretty certain that was a security guard waiting for me to come back to my car.
I looked around the property. Perhaps I could exit the property on the other side and walk over, so they wouldn't catch me on the property. I looked across the other side and then realized this was a stake-out. They knew I was there.
I made a plan. Since they knew I was on the property and would probably just get angrier the longer I was there, I decided to just approach them and walk straight to my car. I was preparing to use my old charm and show them my camera and a few pictures. Before doing so, I swapped my memory card and started taking photos of the exterior so I could show them what I was doing with out them suspecting I actually went inside.
As I walked across the large field towards my car, I used some of the surrounding old buildings for cover, zig-zagging towards my car. When I finally reached the car, I noticed the guy in the truck was asleep! Perhaps he was waiting a while and fell asleep in the warm sunshine. I carefully opened my car door, glanced back at the guard still sleeping, and put my stuff in my car. Without closing my door, I started the car and quickly put it in drive. He was still sleeping. I drove off the property right in front of him with out him waking up. Easily the luckiest and most hilarious escape I've ever had.
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