World Trip 2002 - Penn State Uni
Day 14
Pennsylvania
State College, PSU or just Penn State has some of the best college tunnels
in the world. Located in the town of State College in Pennsylvania the college
has been around for a lot longer than I thought. I thought the town had been
created to give people something to do after the mining industry had collapsed
but buildings on campus are well over a hundred years old.
I almost didn't make it to Penn State on time. After catching a bus from Cincinnati to Columbus I had to change busses. Greyhound's web site insisted that if a bus was full, they'd put on another bus. This turned out to be pure bullshit. A good dozen of us were left stranded at Columbus to wait for the next bus. It was obvious that the Greyhound staff really didn't give a damn about us either. We'd paid for our tickets, they had our money now so they could afford to treat us like shit, which is precisely what they started to do, even threatening passengers who tried to ask for information about the next bus. I found though that overall Greyhound was a company that can be measured by the individuals that make it up. Some of the staff obviously don't care, for them it's just a job. The staff at the counters at Detroit, Washington and Columbus and the bus driver from Washington to New York were examples of these people. Other staff put an effort into their job and make it enjoyable for the people who travel by the bus line. The staff at State College and the bus driver from Columbus to State College were examples of this excellent service. I particularly liked the humor of the driver into State College, he made the trip really worth while.
Triterus
met me at the bus depot in State College and we drove the short way to his
house. It was typical of many houses in the town, shared by several students.
I was too tiered from traveling to do much that day, so we walked into town
to a bar to grab something to eat. The food was great, and quite cheap. The
pasta dish I ate was really good and filled me up. Triterus pointed out that
because the town housed a lot of students, prices were more targeted towards
them. I could even afford to live a quite comfortable life in this town.
Triterus was a great host. It was good to finally meet him after admiring his web site for so long and sending emails back and forth. I think it was Triterus'es web site on PSU that really first got me interested in college tunnels and steam tunnels. His photography was brilliant. I mean really good. He had some great long exposure photos taken at night from the roofs of buildings on campus. He was really into photography, showing me some of his work.
Day 15
I think we first looked at some plant rooms on college. I liked the way Triterus just walked straight into these. No worries, no problems, just pushed doors open into these unlocked rooms. Some places were harder to get in, but not all that hard. I myself would have been a lot more cautious, but this was his territory, he knew what he was doing. Besides, he was not intending to explore any of this stuff again. I had the feeling he was showing me some stuff because I was a guest. He said that he didn't intend to visit the college tunnels any more because he had explored them all and it wasn't really that interesting any more. So it was no problem taking pictures of the places we explored. We wandered around campus taking photos of machine rooms, false ceilings, roof tops, all sorts of places you are not supposed to go.
We entered the college tunnels that night through a passage Triterus had prepared earlier. It was hot down there. Really hot. These were not like the Australian college tunnels I had been in. These tunnels were really hot! They were exciting though, and had the occasional cool bit. The tunnels were full of all sorts of noises, strange sounds, machines that ticked, that hummed, that burst into life when you least expected. Once again I thought that this was no place for the inexperienced. Without a guide you'd get hurt pretty quick. We came upon a nice cool area where there used to be a public underpass. There was plenty of graffiti down here, from the days access was open to everyone. Now part of that passage had been converted into a small work room for the tunnel workers. Plush seats filled the small room. Just outside three big vents let in plenty of air.
We headed down a side tunnel that ran to some of the student residences. It was cooler down here, and plenty high enough to stand up. Some of the passages though were low, and hot, air vents were a welcome relief because they not only had cool air in them but you could stand up. We entered the sub basement of Redifer Commons where there was a machine room with a mass of pipes. It reminded me a great deal of the screen saver which builds pipes at random. There was a large amount of machinery here, and lots of dead cockroaches.
Along the way back we amused ourselves waiting under the vents for people to walk overhead. As the ceiling of the tunnel formed the footpath up above we heard the constant slap slap of feet walking overhead. We could hear conversations drift down into the tunnels. Occasionally we saw people pass overhead. I put the video camera on night scope to film people walking above and managed to get a few people walking above. It was a really unusual point of view to be looking at the world.
After doing one section of the tunnels we met up with Sewer Rat, another PSU explorer who also has a web site on the tunnels. The three of us explored more, heading north up a tunnel that was getting hotter all the time. We came to an intersection where we turned into a tunnel that was very hot and humid. The walls were covered in condensation. The ground was wet. Up ahead there was an ominous sound of a major steam leak. We proceeded ahead slowly. The noise got louder, the air got hotter and more humid. We knew there was a steam leak up ahead somewhere, the tunnel was filled with clouds of water vapor. Finally, I decided this was madness. I announced that I didn't want to go any further, it was too hot. I had also heard stories that live high pressure steam is invisible and can cut like a knife. Because you can't see it, you could loose an arm before you even felt it.
Later on Triterus agreed that he also had felt the situation was extremely dodgy and he was glad that I had called for us to turn back. I think all three of us were just waiting for an excuse to get out of there.
We continued on through the tunnels, stopping to rest in a nice cool room that had once housed transformers. Triterus took a photo of me there. He later said I looked like I was going to die. But I was okay, just hot and a bit tiered. We emerged a bit later, having done the entire outer circle of the Penn State College tunnels. We had started at 9:45 pm and finished at 12:30 am the next day.
Day 16 and 17
I spent the next two days in State College, exploring more buildings and getting to know Triterus a bit better. I really liked the town. It was quiet, once again with a low crime rate. It was a place I could live. Not much to do apart from the tunnels but an easy place to live. The abundance of cheap places to eat was a bonus. The ice cream parlor on campus was another bonus.
Triterus showed me more of the areas of PSU but I think the highlight of places we visited off campus was the college newspaper offices. We visited this the day of the famous State College parking garage collapse. We walked on into this building the evening after the day we explored the college tunnels. There were lots of people around so we sort of blended in and walked around. All of the latest copies of the Nittany paper were gone, with everyone wanting to read about the collapsed parking garage. (No one was hurt in it). We had no hassle finding our way into a small kitchen where we were able to by soft drinks at discount prices. I put a few stickers up on walls and odd places in the hope they would confuse people. We wandered into a copy room where people were preparing the next edition of the paper. We muttered something about a friend we were looking for not being there then calmly moved on.
It was kind of sad to have to move on, as I liked State College and I liked the good time I had there. Triterus is a top bloke, who was a great guide and a nice host. Once again it was a pleasure to have met such an enthusiastic and down to Earth explorer.
From State College I went to Washington and then on down to Blacksburg and Virginia Tech.
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