Industrial

Navy Blues

Once we got out of the power plant, the rest of Amsterdam was more or less a bust. Without cars, or a solid idea of where we were going, the best we could do was guess and look around, wandering from one seemingly derelict building to another without finding any of them quite dead enough. We eventually settled for a stop at a bar downtown, and waiting for our bus to Albany and onward. The bus finally arrived about half an hour late, and thoroughly packed, besides being the last one of the day. The driver wanted to leave us,…

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Power Struggle

I've heard it's possible that sometimes everything goes according to plan. I say bullshit. We made plenty of plans, big ones, too big even -- exploring Albany, Memphis and Chicago in one crazy jet-setting weekend, taking advantage of some deeply discounted Southwest tickets. I was ready to give just about anything a try, I had a chance to meet up with a real explorer, and one coming all the way from England no less, so I aimed to impress, as much as I could at my level anyway, and went along as the plans got bigger and bolder. The trip…

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Sunset Mills

We continued on to the North Country, a merry band of adventurers, overwhelming the Five Guys in Watertown for dinner and soon wandering along route 3 to Deferiet. This place has been something of a curse for me: it's my fifth time there, and I've never once gotten to it more than an hour before sunset, so I've always seen little bits and pieces of it at a time. This time was no different, getting there almost too late to matter. But I wasn't about to let all those gas masks we bought go to waste, and there was already…

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Sweet Science

This was one of those rare times that everything just happened to work out. It was unlikely enough that we managed to save the North Country trip at all, even if it's a few weeks early and none of the people I invited actually showed up, Hayden pulled it off and got not only the biggest meet in a few years, but a way to get there too, and off we were! After a few stops on the way to pick up food, beer and gas masks (mostly intended for the paper mills later on in the trip), we found…

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Charlie Says

It took far longer than I imagined, but I've finally ended my exploring drought, going out to Buffalo (and trying to revive the old Concrete Collective) with Hayden, probably the most promising local explorer I've met in years) to see some of the ruins. Our first stop was Wildroot, the factory that put the grease in Grease. Active from 1936 into the early 60s, Wildroot made hair products from the (wild) lanolin root that were allegedly lighter and less greasy than the competition, though the goal was still the same greased-back rockabilly look. As the times changed, Wildroot Cream Oil…

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The Fire Remains

I've spent far too long wondering if Gary was meant to be my finale as an explorer after all. It was by far my most successful trip, at a time when everything was slowly starting to fall apart for me, one success nearly swept away by a rising tide of failure. I'd been talking about quitting exploring for months, but I knew it was a lie, and most of the people who actually knew me knew it was a lie, and I didn't care -- it made good marketing. I planned a big meet for the end of it all,…

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